Empress Sato
by JMK758
Summary: Mirror AU After IMAD, Hoshi Sato establishes her control over the Terran Empire. Murder, betrayal, intrigue, torture, revenge, a typical few days in the Empire.
1. Establishment

Disclaimer: Paramount owns 'Enterprise' and everything connected with it, except original characters such as Ann Anderson, Mary Sherman and Patricia McCabe, who appeared in 'Face in a Dark Mirror', belong to me and I'm not sharing. (G)

Ann Anderson appeared several times in 'IAMD Pt. 1'. She is the one with the dark ponytail who is seen in the background Situation Room in the rear of the bridge. She also appeared frequently at that station on 'our' Enterprise, and has appeared in several of these stories.

Mary Sherman is the redheaded woman in Engineering who crossed into the scene while accusations were flying after the cloak 'malfunctioned'. She is seen for some time working in the background.

Patricia McCabe was first introduced in 'Cross and Crown' and has appeared in several stories since then.

This is the 27th story in this series, beginning with 'Casting Call' and most recently 'The Court Martial of Hoshi Sato'.

Later works will include 'Extreme Prejudice', 'Fractured', 'Unification' and 'Two Golden Candles'.

Rating: M – Adult situations.

This story takes place in the Mirror Universe 'introduced' in 'In a Mirror Darkly' and 'revisited' in TOS episode 'Mirror, Mirror', and thereafter several times on DS9. As I said in the foreword to 'Face in a Dark Mirror', which 'precedes' 'IAMD' by an unspecified interval; if you are not familiar with these people, they are _not_ the ones you know.

This story commences thirty seconds before the end of 'IAMD'.

Warnings: Murder, betrayal, intrigue, torture, rape, revenge; a typical few days in the Empire.

"Who do you trust, when there is no one left?"

Empress Sato

By JMK758

Prologue

Imperial Starfleet Lt. Hoshi Sato, late of the I.S.S. 'Enterprise', led M.A.C.O.s Travis Mayweather and Paul Estes onto the bridge of the salvaged U.S.S. 'Defiant' and, as she stepped down to the Command Bay, she glanced at Grace Winters seated at Communications. "Open a channel to Fleet Admiral Gardner," she commanded.

"Channel open." Winters reported crisply even before the sound of the order being fulfilled was heard.

As Estes took a position at the upper Command Deck, the better to cover the entire Bridge and Mayweather assumed a post next to the Command Chair, Hoshi addressed the white haired old Admiral. "This is the Starship 'Defiant'," she said, not pausing as she stepped around to the front of the Helm / Navigation console, the better to put herself up front, center stage, the focus of attention, "if you don't surrender immediately, we'll begin targeting your cities. Respond."

She issued the command as though speaking to a junior Officer, an Ensign or one who had not even reached that lowly level, someone who had no choice but to obey her. She knew the effect her tone would have on the proud man.

"Where's Archer?" he demanded; at first stunned by the outrageous woman, then his short white beard bristling in his mounting fury, his face growing flushed as his anger grew. The heavy silver epaulets at his shoulders seemed to glint even in the low light.

x

This was _unbearable_, and helplessness to do anything to combat this ship that had entered orbit above Earth against his orders brought overwhelming fury. He had been expecting Jonathan Archer to disobey his orders not to approach Earth, but for him to deliver a clear and outrageous insult by sending a lackey to pass along his despicable 'orders' was absolutely intolerable.

He was furious to be addressed so by a mere Lieutenant. He was the Senior Admiral of Starfleet. He could feel his face growing redder as his temper flared. "Who the _Hell_ are you?"

The Asian woman adopted an insolent manner to match her tone, and answered him as though the answer had been self-evident. "You're speaking with _Empress_ Sato," she informed him haughtily; then dared to command him to "Prepare to receive instructions."

She gave him the infuriating half smile of someone who knew a long, hard contest had been won.

Chapter One

Establishment

Former Starfleet Lieutenant Hoshi Sato stepped back around the Helm / Navigation console, moving with a slow, slinky walk; carrying herself with a seductive insolence few would dare. Fewer still would turn their back on the irate man. She approached the Captain's chair, turned and slowly enthroned herself upon it as Fleet Admiral Gardner stared, outraged, unable to believe the audacity of the woman. Gardner's temper exploded.

"You dare declare yourself _Empress_?" he demanded furiously, his face redder than it had been moments before. He had been dealing with the megalomaniacal First Officer of the late 'Enterprise', now self-proclaimed 'Captain', who had demanded Earth's unconditional surrender. At first, when Archer had sent him word of a fantastically advanced ship, he had been intrigued, and had supported him even over Enterprise's Captain Forrest, believing his claims that the potential power of this ship could turn the losing tide in the war.

But then he learned that Archer had been inspired to use that ship to stage a coup, to declare himself 'Emperor' and to demand the unconditional surrender of Earth.

He had ordered the man not to approach Earth or he would order his forces to fire upon them. Sadly however, the war had pulled so many of his forces away from Earth that he had nothing but ground-based installations with which to carry out the threat. And Archer had known it, not turning away in his course for Earth.

But intolerable as that had been, he was _damned_ if he was going to deal with a lackey, a subordinate, an upstart Lieutenant with delusions of grandeur. "Where is _Archer_?"

"The _late_ Jonathan Archer has retired from the field of battle," Sato informed him haughtily.

x

The bridge crew of the salvaged, incredibly advanced Federation Starship 'Defiant' strove to mask their reactions. They had sensed something was wrong when Lieutenant Sato strode onto the bridge and started giving orders, but they had thought that she was speaking in the Captain's name.

Now they knew that Archer, who had led them through this crisis, was dead, and that Sato spoke for herself. And if she was going to pull off her quite probably long established plans for assuming the reins of power over the Empire, they had better be very careful indeed.

Hoshi addressed the man on the screen from her temporary throne as though speaking to a servant; certain that it would drive the proud officer to distraction.

"Your orders are as follows: The Emperor and Regent will forthwith resign and surrender themselves, after which you will inform the Fleet of the Change in Command. You have thirty minutes to comply. Close communications."

At her curt command, the screen changed from the apoplectic face of the old Admiral to the planet Earth rotating serenely below them.

x

"Thirty minutes, Ma'am?" Mayweather, her new Chief Bodyguard, seduced away from the employ of the former Captain by charms and talents Archer had never possessed, inquired carefully.

He stood at the left of her chair, clothed in the red and black uniform of the Federation. The combination, they had learned, would have befitted his rank and station in the alternate universe. The only ornamentation on his uniform was an irregularly joined pair of gold rectangles on the left side of his red shirt, in which was depicted a black spiraling lightning bolt.

Hoshi held her hand out, and he placed in it the weapon they had removed from the late Jonathan Archer's quarters, her hand closing around the handle/power pack of the powerful phaser. Her slim fingers caressed the sleek weapon; trim, smooth, sleek and deadly; so much like herself.

"Many of the Admirals and other top officers of Starfleet are already in, or on their way to, the Admiralty building; preparing the deal with the threat of 'Captain' Archer. This will give all of them time to arrive and to make their plans against us."

x

She turned the throne-like Captain's chair about and faced the blonde Officer who had been her own Beta Shift Relief. "Winters?"

"Ma'am?"

"By now, Fleet Admiral Gardner and the Emperor will be in communication, desperately trying to figure out how to handle this new threat with their Fleet scattered throughout this part of the galaxy. Can you tap in on their signal; put them up on the main screen?"

On the Enterprise this would have been simplicity itself, but these were all new systems that could test the ingenuity of the best in Starfleet. Fortunately, Captain Maximilian Forrest had put a lot of effort into assembling that 'best'.

"I'll try, Ma'am."

Hoshi returned the seat to its forward position and sat back, getting comfortable, almost indulgently so. 'Ma'am' would do for now. It was too soon, and the crew was just getting used to the idea of the rapid changes in command over the past few days. And she had not declared herself 'Captain'. She had, in fact, declared herself 'Empress'; but the Emperor still lived and still wielded the power. She had not yet accomplished her goal, so she could forgive them if they weren't quite sure how to address her.

Hoshi sat back, still lovingly caressing the smooth lines of the phaser in her lap. She adjusted the control at the rear of the deadly device all the way and waited. In the meantime, she planned for her next several moves, adding to their details.

x

In an impressively short time the image on the screen split into the faces of two men. They both faced outward from the screen, but it was clear from their conversation that they saw only one another, not the bridge of the 'Defiant'.

On the left was the white haired face of the furious Fleet Admiral Gardner, galled at having to report to his ultimate Majesty that a crew of his had mutinied and now demanded the surrender of Starfleet and the Empire. Worse, they were in possession of sufficient firepower to back up that demand.

The Emperor's face was familiar to most of the crew, and was now contorted in outrage. The man's face was large, but not in a good way. The powerful warrior he had been at his ascension had given way over the years to the soft monarch accustomed to the good life. Hoshi wondered if this was what the infamous madman Henry VIII had looked like before his ultimate downfall. His eyes bulged unpleasantly at the news, his brown beard bristling with his fury. He was dressed in all the finery of his station. None of it meant anything to the phasers of the 'Defiant'.

In the background behind the Empire's supreme leader stood his Regent, Vice Emperor in effect if not in title. He was a younger beardless man of about forty years, with enough skill to have earned his position and just enough carefully masked ambition to allow him to keep it.

Hoshi Sato cared little for what the men were actually saying. She had anticipated it accurately long ago, and this eavesdropping was just to confirm what she already knew. In deploying all their remaining starships to the fight against alien insurgents on numerous fronts, they had left Earth vulnerable to the unthinkable; a coup by an ambitious crew in command of a super-powerful warship from the future.

That order had been Gardner's, and as the heated conversation progressed it was becoming clear to even the least astute upon the Defiant's bridge that even if Starfleet prevailed against this threat, Gardner's career as Supreme Commander was unlikely to be a long one.

Hoshi smiled. If her plan worked, his remaining career was something Gardner would not have to worry about.

x

She looked around the huge, white bridge, listening to the almost musical background of uncounted instruments and systems, focusing finally on the dark haired woman just slightly before her on her right side, the one at the Tactical station which would normally have been manned by Major Reed.

Reed was still in Sick Bay, recovering from wounds received in a Gorn ambush.

Tactical was now 'manned' by Ensign Ann Anderson, who wore the light blue scoop necked mini-dress of a Federation officer. The woman had handled the Tactical Sensor Control Board at the rear of the 'Enterprise' bridge. Her new duty post brought her further forward onto the bridge proper.

"Anderson?"

The woman turned. "Ma'am?"

"Put up on the corner a Tactical view of the Admiralty building."

A moment later the lower left corner of the screen was occupied by a line representation of the huge tower which was the military stronghold of the Empire; a sprawling complex that was the nerve center of the force that had spread Terran dominance throughout known space.

Highlighted in various colors were the locations of the shield generators in the lower levels; the armory; phase cannon batteries powerful enough to knock any invading force out of the sky; along with every other point of strength in the towering complex.

Every critical center was highlighted in colors corresponding to a side legend that cut off the Admiral's chin. Hoshi wished it could have cut off his _mouth_.

x

The Imperial Palace and the Admiralty Building were on either side of a huge open square which, combined with dozens of buildings comprising all the other central offices and headquarters for everything from Agriculture to Public Works, housed the seat of the Empire. One could easily leave one administrative complex and cross the huge open space to any other, thus rendering intermingling of the powers that be of the Empire an easy thing indeed.

As the two men communicated their emergency plans, in light of the Fleet that could save the Imperials still being a day away from assembling to make any major stand against this ship, the 'Defiant' crew listened to all their plans.

To Hoshi, they contained no surprises at all. She had anticipated the men's conversation virtually word for word. Right now, she had more on her mind. She stood up, facing the Sensor/Tactical station forward of her position on her right.

"Well done, Ann," she complimented the light blue clad woman. Anderson turned her chair about to face her. "You've mastered that board most impressively."

"Thank you, Ma'am."

Hoshi raised the phaser and fired.

x

The blue beam of coherent energy struck the woman squarely in her chest, the high pitched weapon coupling with Anderson's aborted shriek as the powerful beam knocked her backward, the chair toppling over, throwing her to the floor almost under the ledge of controls.

Ann Anderson lay still, as utterly silent as the bridge itself as the remaining crew stared either at her body or at Sato, who turned and handed the phaser back to Mayweather. The unconscious woman lay on her back, her long black hair disheveled, her micro-miniskirt flipped upward with the force of her fall to reveal her light blue underwear and long bare legs.

"As we discussed, gentlemen," Hoshi told her guards. Mayweather signaled to the man who had accompanied them onto the bridge, and he to another M.A.C.O. guard. The latter two stepped over to the stunned woman and hauled her to her feet, boosting her up between them, her arms draped over their shoulders as they dragged her across the bridge, crossing between the Command Chair and the Helm to the turbolift.

Hoshi resumed her place upon her throne, Mayweather standing implacably beside her, and she resumed listening to the exchange between the Chief of Starfleet and the Ruler of the Empire.

As they watched, the screen split into quarters as Gardner and the Emperor finished their conversation and Grace Winters, not daring to be less than a model of efficiency, kept them under surveillance together with whomever they were talking to.

Then Hoshi Sato started to give her silent, very cautious crew detailed instructions on what they were going to do.

x

When the allotted thirty minutes had expired Hoshi, the would-be Empress Sato, did not bother to open any channels of communication. Having heard everything that the Emperor, his Regent and the Admiral had to say, and having monitored all subsequent and simultaneous conversations, something that came very easily to her from her long years as Communications Officer, she knew there would be no negotiating. That suited her very well.

Indeed, she would have been disappointed if she had to sit through a long, painfully involved negotiation. She already knew that all of the Admirals and other high ranking officers of Starfleet had converged within the massive Admiralty building, safe behind shields that could stand up to the full output of an NX class battleship's phase cannons. They were secure and could make their plans as they awaited the arrival of the Fleet.

Across the wide courtyard, the Emperor, his Regent and their Council, Staff, Officers, Ministers and sycophants were safe behind equally stout barriers of force.

"Mister Stewart. Fire."

x

At his Helm board, Stewart pressed two buttons in turn. At the touch of the first, the searing blue beams of the 'Defiant's' staggeringly powerful phasers leapt from the lower part of the primary hull to crash, less than a second later, into the powerful defensive screens of the Admiralty building. But strong as those protective screens were, powerful enough to hold off a full barrage of an NX class battleship, they lasted exactly two seconds against the mind-shattering force of the 'Defiant's' primaries.

The shield pierced like a bullet through a soap bubble, the intense beam lanced downward through floor after floor of unresisting masonry. The blue shaft of energy finally expended itself against the subterranean shield generators, which blew up enthusiastically, taking three floors of the lowest levels with them in a cataclysmic explosion.

But powerful as that beam was, as devastating as the explosive fireball it unleashed was, the Admiralty building was so large, so massive, that it could weather this much damage. It could not, however, weather the force that followed.

A moment after launching the supremely powerful phaser barrage, 'Defiant' had unleashed one of its photon torpedoes, calibrated to bring force powerful enough to obliterate an opposing battleship down upon the now defenseless and holed building.

The torpedo leapt into the hole so generously created by the now deactivated phaser, and unleashed its payload of antimatter in the center of the sprawling structure.

The explosion, normally vented in the depths of space, erupted with mind-shattering concussion within the huge structure, blowing it apart with a force that rocked everything in a ten kilometer radius, the deafening report heard for ten times that distance.

All residents in the city turned en mass to the central point as the concussion of the explosion reached them; those in the nearer kilometers actually _feeling_ the force, most much too far away to know exactly what had happened. They were only able to see from distant vantage points a column of fire and smoke and debris rising into the cloudless sky.

They did not know the source of the ground quaking explosion, did not know its import. They only knew that something terrible, something absolutely catastrophic, had happened. Some more astute, or closer to the scene, realized it was something that would change their lives forever.

x

High above the city the huge Federation starship, so massive that each of its nacelles was as long as an NX battleship, circled Earth, serenely confident in its power. On the bridge, Hoshi Sato turned to her left, facing Commander Charles Tucker. "Do you still have a lock on them?"

"Yes, Ma'am," the man replied with terrible satisfaction. He had been waiting for this moment for a half hour.

"Mr. Stewart, fire the phasers. But be _precise_."

This was something she had made sure the man understood thoroughly. When he activated the terrible weapon again, it was on limited power and directed well away from the place where their targets were standing. It was no part of her plan to damage the Palace she intended to call 'home'.

As the beam struck, the defensive shields surrounding the structure, which had barely protected it from the titanic explosion yards away, automatically shifted power to strengthen that section under attack. But it took a staggering amount of energy to maintain a defensive shield that could resist, even temporarily, the mind boggling force of the 'Defiant's phasers. And that power had to come from somewhere.

"Activate the transporter."

While it was true that a Terran transporter could not breach the shields that surrounded the Imperial Palace, that defensive barrier no longer provided uniform protection. Energy for the shield over the transporter's target area had been siphoned off to protect the area under attack, and this starship's terrible power could and did punch through the relatively flimsy shielding that remained, to scoop up the startled Emperor and Regent, and reconstitute their bodies deep in the bowels of the 'Defiant'.

"They're in the brig." Charles Tucker, at the Engineering Station to her left, reported with a malevolent smile. Hoshi stood.

"Cease fire," she ordered with immense satisfaction. She turned to her Chief Bodyguard. "Let's not keep our illustrious Emperor waiting."


	2. Housecleaning

Chapter Two

Housecleaning

A moment ago, the Supreme Ruler of the Terran Empire and his Regent had been looking out the window of his Palace, surveying with horror the crater that marked the site of the Admiralty of Starfleet, the center of all military might of the known galaxy. Now it and the buildings on either side were gone; obliterated in an explosion so powerful that the full force of the Palace's shields had barely stood up to the barrage of flaming debris that had pummeled it.

There was nothing across the block wide courtyard from the Palace but a column of smoke and flame where three huge buildings had stood in proud defiance.

A moment later they stood in a small room, three sides taken up by off-white bulkheads, the fourth by a glowing doorway through which they could see two M.A.C.O. soldiers.

Across the short corridor from them was another similar room. Within it stood a woman with long black hair, wearing a light blue dress cut dramatically low and astonishingly short, high black boots coming just up to the calves of her bare legs. On her chest, beside the scoop neck, was an unusual emblem; an irregularly joined pair of gold rectangles, in the junction of which were two interlinked circles. Upon the cuffs of her blue sleeves were single bands of gold.

At least the two M.A.C.O.s standing outside the door wore proper uniforms.

x

Seeing nothing to prevent their departure from such insecure holding pens, the Regent strode forward, ready to issue the commands to the M.A.C.O.s that would lead to the retaking of their power. As he started through the doorway, there was a flash of light and he was driven back, startled by the once again invisible barrier.

Ignoring his Regent, though not his example, the Emperor faced his guards. "You men; you know who I am?"

"I know who you were," the taller of them replied, stressing the former tense.

"I am your Emperor! You will open this cell and follow my orders."

"We follow Captain Archer's orders," the man replied defiantly, his tone a clear dismissal of his former ruler. He had been down in this section with his fellow for quite some time, but he knew the signs of a developing coup when he saw it.

"Archer is dead," the woman in the cell behind them declared bitterly. The Emperor could see on their faces the surprise this message carried as they turned to her, looking for confirmation of this news on her face. This was of no surprise to their Supreme Leader – ignorance was always the norm in the lower ranks. This could be useful. "You follow Lt. _Sato_ now," tnderson maintained, though there was no pleasure in her tone.

"Then if she is in Command, she is the one we will follow," the guard retorted.

x

As if on cue, a voice came from the end of the corridor. "I am in Command. And you _will_ follow me." Both men turned and snapped to Attention, executing the Imperial salute, a striking of the closed right fist to the chest and then a stiff armed extension of that fist toward the smaller Asian woman who approached. They held the position as she stopped before them. Flanking her stood a tall black man in a red shirt, on the left side of his chest that irregular pair of gold rectangles such as the woman in the opposite cell wore, this one decorated with a curved bolt of lightning. The shorter woman, dressed in the tight midriff uniform of an Imperial Lieutenant, looked at the guards holding the salute before her.

"I've never liked that salute," she told them. "It's too easy to have something in your hand. Open your hands." Both men complied as ordered. "Raise them slightly; let me see your palms." Again they obeyed, their arms slightly elevated to just above shoulder height. "That's better. That will be the new salute. Inform your fellows." Both men exchanged a quick, curious glance, but they were not about to question the woman whom they had long known to be the 'Captain's Woman' under two Captains, but who now issued commands to them as though born to do so.

It was clear that much had happened since they had been posted to guard the first of now four prisoners; the arrival of each having been more of a surprise than the previous.

Each man presented the new salute, which Sato returned with an air of satisfaction.

x

"Rather presumptuous of you, _Lieutenant_," the Regent stressed. The woman did not rise to the bait, but just extended her hand to the black man behind her. He placed in that hand a rather odd looking weapon, considerably smaller and sleeker than a phase pistol, upon on the rear portion of which was a dial, which she turned all the way to its limit. She then nodded once to the taller M.A.C.O., who touched a button on the bulkhead beside the door. The glow surrounding the door went off, and she stepped through the portal.

She was barely through when she fired, a blue beam lancing out of the loud weapon to envelop the Regent in a field of red energy. He convulsed as though in pain, but with astonishing speed his body, suffused with the force of the weapon, melted into nothingness. "I always thought he was redundant," she said dismissively, turning to the surprised Emperor.

"So now you kill me."

x

Robert MacNamara had always believed himself a practical and realistic man. He knew without a doubt that he was doomed to suffer the same death as his second; that this woman sought a rise to power even as he had in his time, and in her eyes he could see that she was as ruthless as he himself was. But he knew it took far more than ruthlessness to command.

Far more.

He wondered if this woman had it.

"Not yet," Hoshi told him, the strange pistol not wavering; her manner one of almost seductive insolence merged with ambition. She was working to a plan, and was ready to do all she had to do accomplish it.

"Disintegrating you is not my plan. I need your body."

"I imagine that is something you are told far more often than I."

x

The slight woman ignored this. He had to give her credit for that, if for nothing else. "The Fleet is assembling from all corners of the Empire in a desperate rush to make it back to Earth in time to save you," she said, "but they are almost a full day away. In the meantime, this ship has transmitted video records of a battle we had not long ago, where the entire Assault Fleet was wiped out by rebel forces, which the 'Defiant' in turn annihilated in seconds.

"Accompanying that information is a record of what happened to the former Admiralty building and all within it. And now what is transpiring here is being sent to every ship in the Terran Fleet. They will hear you order them to stand down and hold their positions, and then you will cede the Empire to me."

A slow smile crept across the man's face. "Do you actually believe I will give those orders?"

"No." She turned the dial on the rear of the pistol. "There's no need for you to."

Aiming between his eyes, she pressed the trigger.

x

The blue beam drove him back to fall against the bulkhead, sprawl across the small bunk and then to the floor. Throughout, Hoshi kept the beam trained upon his head. It was ten seconds after he had fallen to the floor that she turned the weapon off.

The red shirted M.A.C.O. Sergeant entered the room, knelt down beside the body. He examined it closely; then looked up at Sato. "He's dead."

"As I understand this weapon, every neuron in his skull has been fried. His body can be examined by anyone who doubts his termination." She then looked up at the monitor in the overhead.

"This is _Empress Sato_ to all the ships in the Terran Fleet, all forces arrayed on Earth and all our colonies, protectorates and subject worlds. You now know that the former Emperor is dead, and by right and tradition I assume Command of the Empire. All ships and all planetary Military forces are to hold their positions and await orders. You also know that every Admiral, every Commodore, every Fleet Captain and Adjunct is dead. I will need new Officers chosen from among those who prove themselves loyal to me. End transmission."

Hoshi paused for a moment to be sure that the bridge had cut the outgoing signal; then she addressed her guards. "Have the body brought to Sick Bay, but tell Phlox he may _not_ do an autopsy. I want the Imperial doctors to make the examination."

It was no part of her plan to have them come aboard to find him already spread open from neck to crotch on Phlox's examination table. The fatal blow had to be proven by the Emperor's most trusted staff to have come by her hand.

"Yes; your Highness."

Hoshi smiled. She liked the sound of that.

x

Phlox. He was a loose end, something she did not like. Archer had been willing to spare the Denobulan because his people were loyal to the Empire, and the Doctor had betrayed them at a critical moment. He was in Sick Bay only because the ship did not have a doctor without him, but she had no intention of placing herself under his ministry - not until she could determine where his loyalty lay.

The Medical problem was a big one. She did not trust Phlox, but she trusted the former Emperor's doctors far less.

She had to choose a Personal Physician whom she could trust, one in whose hands she could place herself with utmost confidence. At this point she had no prospective candidates at all.

This was something that had to be resolved, but it would have to wait. There was housekeeping of a more immediate nature to deal with.

Stepping out of the cell, she took two steps down the corridor to the next prisoner.

x

The Vulcan bitch T'Pol, still encased in steel clamps that manacled her wrists before her, stood waiting, favoring her with a look that masked her true feelings not in the slightest. She was still wearing the Imperial uniform which she had adopted after being 'banished' to the I.S.S. 'Avenger'.

Several of the survivors of the late, lamented 'Enterprise' had gone over to the clothing of this ship, as had T'Pol when she had been a member of this crew. Several others had as well, and over the coming days more would have to. Hoshi herself would need a change of attire soon, but at least hers would be something with ermine.

But what of the others? She had never really cared for that unflattering jumpsuit look.

Perhaps she should simply make the Federation design de rigor for the entire Fleet. It was something to consider. Later.

"So, now we come to you."

"As unpleasant as Jonathan Archer was; if one of you was to die, it should have been you," T'Pol told her with a voice filled with hatred. Her untended cheek wound was still smeared with green blood, and her long brown hair was still disheveled from the rough treatment she had received.

"You did your best to make that happen."

"Next time I will succeed."

"I believe you." Hoshi touched the button controlling the force field and shot her.

x

The phaser was still on the lowest 'stun' setting, and the blue beam knocked the woman off her feet. She fell hard onto her back, her body twitching spasmodically from the force that had suffused her body, overloading her nerves.

The two M.A.C.O.s who had been her guards preceded Sato into the cell, where they grabbed T'Pol's arms and hauled her to her feet. She could not control her muscles enough to stand, but hung limply in the men's arms, unable to even raise her head to look at her detested foe.

Hoshi stood before her, grasped the Vulcan's long brown hair in her hand and pulled upward, bringing T'Pol's face toward her. "Captain Archer kept you alive, made you his First Officer. He gave you a chance and you betrayed him. Then he gave you a _second_ chance because he needed your scientific knowledge, your computer skill, your vast intelligence; and you betrayed us again."

"The Empire you served is corrupt and evil. The Empire you would lead will be an _abomination_!"

Hoshi drew her dagger from the sheath at her hip. She tapped the sharp blade against T'Pol's cheek. "Captain Archer needed your scientific mind to help run 'Defiant'." She let go of T'Pol's hair and moved slowly around the M.A.C.O. holding her upright by her right arm. "I, however, have my pick of the best minds of the Empire."

"The Federation is our future!" T'Pol exclaimed, able now to hold her head up and trying to look at Hoshi over her own shoulder, but it was too hard to turn her neck far enough. "Why won't you recognize that?"

"Who knows? You could be right. Vulcans live a long, long time. If you hadn't betrayed us, you might even have lived to see it."

Hoshi rammed her dagger as hard as she could into T'Pol's bare back just above the level of her low pants as the woman cried out, stiffening in the arms of the M.A.C.O.s, driven forward, her back arched in pain.

Hoshi did not know exactly where the Vulcan's heart was, only that it was low in her back, so she pulled out the dagger and plunged it in again in a slightly different spot as the woman stood stiffly, trying to hold her agonized cries as her hated enemy stabbed her a third time, a fourth, a fifth.

Finally, on the sixth blow, the flow of green blood that was spreading and darkening the blue uniform pants became a gushing torrent that Hoshi barely evaded. T'Pol collapsed into the supporting arms of the M.A.C.O.s, her body a dead weight, her long brown hair falling forward to curtain her face.

They released her, and the Vulcan traitor dropped face down onto the deck, dead.

Hoshi bent over the still body, and rubbed her blade back and forth along the woman's bum, clearing the green blood away from the gleaming metal. Her hand was covered in green gore, so she switched the now gleaming dagger to her left hand so she could rub the blood off on the dead woman's ass, and contemptuously between her thighs.

She stood up; glancing at the M.A.C.O. to whom she had given orders regarding Phlox and the Emperor. "He can have that one."

She left the cell and crossed the corridor to the last remaining bit of unfinished business in this brig.

x

Ensign Ann Anderson had watched the executions of the Regent, the Emperor and Commander T'Pol with mounting horror. As Hoshi Sato approached the glowing portal to her cell, the naked blade once again gleaming in her hand, she backed away, having no doubt about her fate.

She watched in silent horror as Hoshi, a woman she had been apprehensive about long before she had murdered three people, turned off the force field and led the three large men into the cell. They stood arrayed behind her almost as a curtain, or backdrop of doom.

Hoshi, still holding the blade, regarded her.

Ann's shoulder length chestnut hair, normally drawn back into a pony tail, now framed a face filled with undisguiseable fear.

"And now we come to you."

x

Ann gulped, trying her best not to show how deathly afraid she was, nor to let her eyes and face betray her. She had always thought that when the end came; and she had wanted it to come swiftly; she would face it without fear. Now she tried to hide how badly she was trembling.

She tried to speak, but her mouth was so dry she could not form words.

"You supplied Jonathan Archer with information." Hoshi said with deceptive mildness, but nothing could disguise the menace of that deadly blade. "You were his chief informant, his chief spy, both within and without the 'Enterprise'."

Ann couldn't deny it. She could only nod mutely.

"For how long?"

"Over two years," Ann whispered, her voice rasping in her dry throat.

"Why?" Hoshi asked with cunning casualness, holding the dagger up, turning it slowly, the many lights in the room reflecting off its gleaming surface, casting rotating spots about the room.

"I–" Ann's voice cracked. She swallowed hard and tried again. "I loved him." It was painful to admit it, in light of Archer's betrayal of her feelings, but she couldn't lie. Not now. "I loved him. There was a time when I would have done _anything_ for him."

"Past tense?" The dark woman asked curiously. Her mild tone and manner were more chilling than an outright threat could ever be. She was like a kitten with razor sharp claws and six inch fangs.

"He didn't love me." She did not try to hide her bitterness. "He made me _think_ he did, but he didn't."

"Yet you continued to supply him with information; information even a Commander wasn't entitled to. Things I passed along to Captain Forrest unread and untranslated from Imperial code you gave to him in the clear. You were his chief resource when it came to finding out about this ship."

"That's what he called me. A 'resource'," she said bitterly, more galled by the moment at the painful memory and the fate it had led her to. "I loved him, and he called me a '_resource'_. He had no feelings for me, but I knew I couldn't stop."

"He'd have had you killed if you failed him." She nodded. "You were good," Hoshi said, not begrudging the compliment. "I never caught on about you until it was too late. Not until he told me aboard this ship. And you mastered that Sensor/Tactical system on the Bridge with impressive speed." She made a show of considering. "I could actually _use_ a woman of your ability. I need someone who will keep _me_ informed."

x

Ann Anderson stared at her, terror fading in hope; for the first time realizing she had a chance of getting of this alive. "I would serve you faithfully, your Majesty," she swore, meaning every word.

"But there we have a problem, don't you see?" Hoshi asked sadly, visibly changing her mind, gesturing with her dagger, the lights playing along it, casting moving reflections throughout the small, crowded cell. "You took an Oath of Loyalty to Captain Forrest, didn't you?"

"Yes, your Highness." Ann tried to speak normally, but fear strangled her voice to a whisper. She could see where the woman's words were leading, and her confidence vanished again.

"Yet you betrayed him and helped his First Officer to _mutiny_. So how can I believe any Oath you would swear to me?"

x

Hoshi took a step forward, leading with the blade, and Ann backed away, coming up against the rear bulkhead. She could not take her eyes off the moving, flashing dagger. Even the three M.A.C.O.s flanking the new Empress paled to insignificance compared to that razor sharp blade.

"What did he promise you?" she asked, her voice taking on a seductive tone. Ann thought it was the seductiveness of death.

"A – a Lieutenancy, your Highness."

Hoshi's eyes flickered to the woman's wrists. "You're already wearing a Lieutenant's uniform."

"It was the first one I found that fit me, in the quarters of a female scientist. The database said that blue and two circles are closest to my duties. I didn't mean to…." Her voice trailed off. She could not look away from the gleaming dagger.

x

Hoshi regarded her thoughtfully for a long moment, drawing the moment out painfully before she nodded. "All right, you're a Lieutenant."

"Thank you, your Majesty." She tried to say it aloud, but the best she could manage was a whisper.

"You'll work for me, providing me with not only Tactical and Sensor information, but information on what the _crew_ is doing; what those around me are doing, wherever I am."

"Yes, your Highness."

"If he doesn't pull through, you might even find yourself with Major Reed's job."

"Thank you, your Highness!" She was surprised, and made sure she sounded appropriately grateful.

x

Hoshi stepped in very close and Ann drew back in renewed fright. Hoshi advanced until they were an inch apart and Ann's back was pinned to the wall. Hoshi raised the knife, pressing the point under Ann's chin, tilting her head up as Ann fought uselessly to escape the needle sharp point until it was with some difficulty that Anderson could look down into her eyes. The seductive tone was gone, replaced with one of iron.

"Understand me. I don't _trust_ you." She let the deadly pronouncement sink in, watching Anderson's spirit quail.

"It's going to take you a long time to _earn_ my trust, if you _ever_ do. Just as you will watch people, _you_ are going to be watched – _very_ closely. You will never know for sure by whom, or by how many. I will know long before your first move when you are going to try to betray me." She pressed the needle sharp point of the blade deeper until it almost drew blood and Ann froze, fighting to keep still, to hold her breath, knowing what would happen if she even swallowed too hard. "And you've seen that I am _not_ a forgiving woman."

"No, your Highness," Ann whispered, not daring to move enough to speak aloud, knowing she was a wrist flick away from being cut. She knew from the stories of what had happened to the slave Anlor just how vicious Hoshi could be with her knife. When Hoshi withdrew the point of the dagger from under Ann's chin, replacing the razor sharp blade in her hip sheath, Ann breathed a very carefully silent sigh of relief.

"You may return to your post in a short while."

x

Hoshi turned, and her guards cleared a path for her. But after stepping among them, she turned to Travis Mayweather. "She has a lovely face. Don't damage it. But I want you to spend about five minutes educating her on the importance of Loyalty."

Hoshi heard Anderson's sharp intake of breath as she stepped away, accompanied by the two uniformed M.A.C.O.s as Travis turned to the trapped woman. As Hoshi turned the corner into the corridor, Anderson's piercing shriek followed her, joined an instant later by the sound of heavy impact against the durasteel bulkhead.

As the new Empress walked the length of the long corridor toward the turbolift, flanked by the two M.A.C.O.s, screams of agony punctuated by heavy impacts of fists on flesh filled the deck, an almost musical accompaniment to her departure. Ann's agonized screams continued as the door slid open and they stepped in, a high pitched shriek the final note as the doors slid closed.

Hoshi could still hear the brutalized woman for several seconds, the screams fading rapidly, receding as the car carried her upward to her bridge.


	3. Restructuring

Chapter Three

Restructuring

Hoshi Sato, now firmly established on Earth, in the Fleet and most particularly on this ship as _Empress Sato_, stepped out of the turbolift, her guards at ready and already covering the Bridge. Everyone immediately stood and faced her, came to Attention and presented the Imperial Salute – the _new_ Imperial Salute. They had been watching attentively all that had happened in the brig, and no one wanted to give the impression that he or she was in any way deficient in offering proper respect.

Empress Sato returned the salute, feeling very gratified indeed. The M.A.C.O.s took up positions on either side of the turbolift.

"Status of the Fleet?"

"Long range sensors – and I do mean _long_ range – show the ships holding station where they were when they received our transmission." Lt. Tina Parker, the new Science Officer, once third in rank, reported crisply. "Some had rendezvoused to form small task groups, but the majority of the approaching – formerly approaching – forces consist of single ships pulled off their posts by Fleet Admiral Gardner."

"How far is 'long range'?"

"One hundred fifty light years."

Hoshi was impressed. This vessel, she was certain, was going to make a fine Flagship and the cornerstone of a new Fleet.

Of course, much of that depended upon the next few hours.

It was one thing to assume Command, quite another to keep it.

Her position would not be secure until she had the military forces of the Empire behind her. It was not enough that they were obeying her orders at this point, not enough at all. Her implied promise of advancement for those loyal to her was only going to carry her for so long if she didn't follow through – quickly.

And she could not afford to deceive herself; not that she ever did. Those ships were not keeping station at her order. They were hesitating only long enough to see what happened. The Empire was in chaos within, and at war from without. The Emperor was dead, the Regent was dead, the entire upper echelon of Military power was dead. If no one arose to issue orders countermanding Sato's, then she was in command.

But could she hold the Empire in the face of a large and powerful Rebellion, which was certain to see this period of chaos as the perfect opportunity to launch a major strike against them?

How much time did she have?

x

It was certain, for now, that no one in the Empire would move against her. She had acted so swiftly to clear the field that, even if someone had been planning something, it was too soon to put any possible plan into effect. She was the leader, and no one was ready to move against her until they found out what kind of a leader she would be. They also needed to determine if it was possible to move against her while she was backed by the unimaginable power of this Starship.

Archer had been right about one thing; however. The military, and the people, were loyal to the Emperor; they didn't care who it was. It could be Robert MacNamara or Jonathan Archer or Hoshi Sato; they were loyal – provided the Emperor, or Empress, showed he or she was strong enough to lead.

If not ... well, Emperors had enjoyed long reigns as well as astonishingly short ones.

x

"Mister Tucker." She turned to the red shirted Chief Engineer seated to her left on the upper level. She had not moved far from the turbolift.

"Your Majesty?" He stood respectfully, a wise move indeed.

"I want you to make sure that this ship's Engines, Weaponry and Tactical systems are in perfect order; just in case one of those Captains out there decides he wants to make a run at my throne before I even get to sit on it. I also want you to start whatever methods this ship uses to restock its armaments. We've used a lot of torpedoes; I don't want to run out."

"Yes, your Excellency." He was about to comply with her orders, but paused. "But remember, this ship is designed for a crew of 430 and we're only 80." He included the count of human officers who had been transferred by Archer to the 'Defiant' and thereby survived the destruction of the 'Avenger'.

"Pull everyone you need. Soon you'll have a crew. You're going to need it; because as the highest ranking _surviving_ officer," she paused, letting the distinction sink in, "I'm promoting you to First Officer."

"Yes, your Majesty. Thank you, your Highness." He was appropriately grateful. Unsaid was the implication that, when she finally descended to the Imperial Palace, he would run things.

As the two stood on the upper deck, neither of them took note of the reactions of the other bridge crew. None of them were happy.

x

When Tucker left the bridge, Hoshi returned to her central throne. There were only four others in the command center with her; Parker to her right at the Science Station between Communications and Tactical, Winters beside her at Communications, Stewart at the Helm, and McKay had moved from Environmental Control to cover Engineering. The two M.A.C.O. soldiers flanking the door did not count.

Hoshi brought herself up short. She had better learn, and remember, that everyone counted. Tucker was right; there were just over 80 crewmen, less than one fifth of what was needed to run this ship. As long as they were in orbit, only critical systems needed to be manned. But if they were to go into battle – or anywhere else – she needed a crew she could depend upon. She needed a crew that could handle the intricacies of technology 100 years in advance of anything they had ever seen. Even more importantly, she needed a crew that she could trust.

Right now, the surviving humans of the 'Enterprise' and the 'Avenger'; after Archer had segregated the crew of that former battleship from the alien contingent; were barely a skeleton crew to this huge ship. And while she was certain of the loyalty of every 'Enterprise' survivor, what of the crew of the 'Avenger', whose ship Archer had destroyed when the aliens left aboard had turned upon 'Defiant'?

If she could not guarantee the loyalty of those up here with her now, how could she do so for any potential recruits?

x

At that moment the turbolift doors opened and Travis Mayweather returned, his hand gripping Ann Anderson's arm. She was hunched and shaking, hair disheveled. He brought her around the front of the bridge past the Helm and deposited her not gently into her seat at Tactical. She turned to her station, giving it her full attention, but she was trembling and battered. She faced as far away from the Command Chair as she could while still attending her station, averting her eyes from her Empress, fearful of provoking another 'lesson'.

There were no visible bruises or marks on her body, but Hoshi was certain there were plenty under her brief light blue uniform.

Mayweather returned to his post at his Empress' left.

x

This was not going to do. While it was true that Anderson had been given her 'education' by Hoshi's order; she realized she had to find a far better way of assuring discipline and loyalty, one that would not build resentment instead.

She touched the communicator button set as one of the controls on the chair's arm. "Bridge to Sick Bay."

"Phlox here." The reply came a few seconds later. Briefly she wondered what the black uniformed Denobulan was doing. She hoped he was up to his elbows in green blood, the Vulcan bitch splayed open upon his table.

"What's Major Reed's condition?"

"I believe he is going to live, though he may need some recuperative time." He sounded like he did not care one way or the other if Reed recuperated or expired.

"He can recuperate on his off-shift." Hoshi replied, thinking of their limited staff. "I want him on duty as soon as he can walk."

To her right, she saw Anderson flinch even against her own pain. Once Reed returned to the Bridge, there would be no need for her. Was her imminent removal from the Bridge to be a removal from –?

"As you wish." The Denobulan replied with a distinctly dismissive tone. She knew that, on the whole, he didn't care if Reed, or any others under his care, were well enough to walk or not.

Phlox was a remarkable doctor, as ready to infect or kill as he was to heal. She supposed it was a mark of both of them that together he and Reed had created the Agony Booth, a device that might eventually find its way aboard the 'Defiant' if she did not forbid it.

Privately, she wondered if she would.

xxx

First Officer and Chief Engineer Charles Tucker strode into Engineering, impressed once again at its size and complexity. It never failed to amaze him. Streamlined to a degree that 'Enterprise' could never have been, it was the seat of power staggering in its proportions. Matter and antimatter were mutually annihilated in the incredibly huge and powerful chambers before him, separated only by a grate from the main section of Engineering, controlled by bank after bank of complex controls he and his crew were just beginning to work out the intricacies of. The power was filtered through the dilithium chamber in the center of the deck, then shunted to the engines in two tremendous nacelles, each of which as long as the entire 'Enterprise' had been. Together they created a warp field that was absolutely phenomenal in its power.

Warp five? Forget it. This ship _cruised_ at warp six for days, weeks at a time, and could hit a mind-blasting warp _Ten_. It could fly figure eights about any other ships in the Fleet. Its phaser banks could pierce the fiercest driven shields like soap bubbles, or rake across an entire city and reduce it to a smoldering ruin in minutes. Its photon torpedoes; set for standard yield, not highest, could and did knock out heavily shielded battleships with one shot.

The Engineering Section was divided into two levels, a secondary level on the left and right. The one on the right contained the 'Emergency Manual Monitor Station', as well as the Chief Engineer's office, from which he could look down at his crew and their activities.

He'd never had an office before.

This ship even had an off-site redundant Auxiliary Control Station; through which Command and Engineering functions could be controlled should either the Bridge or Main Engineering, or both, become damaged and uninhabitable.

The power of this ship was beyond anything he had ever dreamed.

And it was all his!

x

But only if he could fulfill the Empress' orders and make sure the ship was well stocked and ready to defend itself – and her – at a moment's notice.

Fortunately, so much of this ship was automatic that he didn't have to worry much about armaments. The phaser banks recharged themselves; they were long ago up to one hundred percent. The photon torpedoes, utilizing anti-matter as they did, were normally constructed by the ship's computers; with only the last stage, the fitting of the warhead, handled at human direction, and even this with computer control doing the actual fitting.

For this he was glad. There were not that many people he knew that were comfortable dealing with antimatter, not when the slightest mistake was something the operator, and all those on the ship, would never even know about.

And of those who were comfortable handling anti-matter, few had survived the Tholians' destruction of 'Enterprise'. There were a number of his former crewmates that he wished he had with him now.

He looked about the room at his entire staff, all eight of them.

x

He had been right in reminding her Nibs that they were short handed. Eight people didn't approach an 8-hour shift's complement, to say nothing of being his total resources. This ultra-powerful and impressively automated ship was not at a loss; its crew was.

"All right, listen up," he called, his voice reverberating in the huge chamber. All eight stopped what they were doing and turned their attentions to him.

They were a mixed bunch. With the exception of Mary Sherman, all of them were transferees and survivors from the 'Avenger'. He had had one more from 'Enterprise', Ensign Kelby, but the Gorn had deprived him of that man's services. Half of the total had made the switch to the red and black uniforms of the Engineering crew of this ship. Those who had thought to prepare ahead of time had brought some changes of clothing with them when they had been transferred so precipitously from the 'Avenger'.

Ensign Mary Sherman, the only other survivor from 'Enterprise' – and frankly the only one he trusted with the complexities of this new ship – wore the extremely brief, scoop necked red uniform of the former crew of this ship. He had to admit that the lovely woman, with her red hair, did look quite fetching in it; the way the very, very brief red dress displayed the length of her long, sexy legs and hugged the curves of her body….

He pulled his mind up short. There was no time to be thinking of this.

x

"All right. Her Nibs upstairs wants this ship ready for battle at a moment's notice, so you know what that means. We nine are all there are to do it. She says we can pull from other departments, but I'm not going to trust a sensor specialist with a warp field generator, so we're all there is." He glanced at the chronometer at the console at his left. It was thirteen thirty eight.

"We're going to do two shifts, maybe for the next couple of weeks. Sherman, I want you, Kirkwood, Allwell and Safara to take Alpha shift, oh eight hundred to twenty hundred. You others, beat it and come back well rested and ready to bust your balls at twenty; and I _don't_ mean twenty hundred and one." The four not named departed quickly and gratefully. They had been on duty for nine hours already. The new 'Alpha Shift' now had another six and a half hours to go.

"You first four; continue learning everything about these systems. Inspect and study – and hope a conduit doesn't blow out on deck nineteen before you're done."

So saying, he made his way to the right rear of the deck, and the ladder that would take him up to his office. There were a hundred years of 'Technical Journals' he had to get through in the next few hours.


	4. Challenge

Chapter Four

Challenge

"Your Highness?" Lt. Ann Anderson's voice from Tactical snatched Hoshi's attention. She was amazed at how cowed that voice had become. She hoped that Mayweather, in his efforts to carry out her orders, had not broken more in the woman than she had intended.

"What is it?" she asked, turning her chair to the right, to her ten o'clock position.

"One ship, the 'Vindicator', has broken station and has resumed course for Earth. Speed … warp 5.4." She concluded, impressed.

Hoshi turned the chair back to face forward. "He's pressing his ship. I wonder if he feels it's worth it." Privately, she also wondered if she should order the commander of that ship to stand down. Better not. He was already disobeying 'orders', though she was still certain that this stand off had been nothing to the Fleet but an evaluating pause. If it came to a direct order, and he did not back down, it would lead to an unfortunate and unavoidable conclusion. He would either be seen as able to challenge her openly, which she could not afford, or she would have to destroy him.

She relished neither option.

"What's his E.T.A.?"

Lt. Tina Parker had already computed that. "Three hours, nine minutes – if his engines don't blow up first."

Hoshi looked back to her Communications Officer. "Ms. Winters, link to Starfleet datanet. I want to know who's in command of that ship, and records of the primary crew." She settled back in her chair. "This could get very interesting."

xx

"Captain Matthew Tocari." Hoshi read a few minutes later. "He looks like a competent sort," she mused to no one in particular as the datafile appeared on the huge screen before them.

Actually, he was more than 'competent'. The man had an impressive list of accomplishments that spoke of personal dynamic ability and ruthlessness rare even among Imperials. He was a martinet, an unforgiving ruler who demanded nothing but the best from those under him. Stern and domineering, he was just the type she had expected to be the first to challenge her reign.

Just as well. She doubted she would ever have made him an Admiral.

She spent the next few minutes looking over the records of his crew. This was a better option. She could do something with this lot.

But first there was something that was even more pressing. "Winters, are you still monitoring Imperial communications below?" Even as she asked the question with deceptive mildness, she smiled inwardly. Winters was good enough to have been doing so without having to have been told, and she was hardly likely to say 'no'.

"There is considerable cross-chatter. Some points of opposition are appearing, but on the whole the Imperial forces are regrouping and exhibiting a loyal stance."

"Too good to be believed, would you say?"

"Yes, your Excellency, I would."

"Among those who are against me, do they seem to have a center?"

"We've found one; in Seattle, Washington."

They were presently in geosynchronous orbit over San Francisco. Hoshi did a mental calculation and didn't like the result. A weapon strike from their position would bring the attack in from too low on the horizon to ensure that there would be no collateral damage.

She did not intend for this show of power to injure innocents. The wholesale destruction of unnumbered lives, especially when it could easily be avoided, would send the wrong message to her people.

"Mr. Stewart, increase orbit to the maximum effective range of our torpedoes, but do not move any closer to Seattle. I don't want anyone alerted."

"Yes, your Majesty."

She watched as the Earth seemed to withdraw from beneath them. "Miss Winters, when we're in position, open a channel to the surface. I want a transmission that will blanket the planet."

"Yes, your Highness."

She turned to Anderson at Tactical. "Set the torpedo yield to full power." She intended the target building to go up in a spectacular, awesome display just as the Admiralty building had done.

"Yes, your Majesty," Ann obeyed carefully.

x

After a very brief interval, Winters announced. "Channel Open, your Highness."

Hoshi took a deep breath, held it for a moment and then let it out silently. She did not want to have to do this, but there was little choice.

"This is Empress Sato aboard the Imperial Flagship 'Defiant'. While it is my hope that the change in power may be accomplished peaceably for the good of the Empire, there are some who would resist this change and must be educated. Resistance to my law will be punished; obedience to my rule will be just as swiftly rewarded. I trust you will all find enlightenment." Hoshi signaled to Winters to close the channel. She raised her hand toward Stewart, and brought it down.

A single torpedo leapt from the bottom of the huge saucer, sped down into the atmosphere of Earth, slammed into a building in the north quadrant of Seattle.

x

Photon torpedoes had been used, with one exception, exclusively in space combat against ships equipped with energy shields and hull plating over a meter thick, polarized to ward off the effect of destructive energies unleashed against them. The residential building this torpedo expended its payload of antimatter against was masonry over a steel infrastructure inside a city, not a shielded battleship in the depths of space.

The flash overwhelmed the sensors, and the screen rapidly dimmed to avoid blinding everyone who beheld it. The titanic explosion was visible even under normal magnification covering the entire city as those on the bridge stared in horror. The target building was annihilated but the crater that was left in its place was a kilometer wide!

A monstrous cloud erupted from the site as the blast sent a shockwave of superheated air rushing outward in all directions at nearly sonic speed. So hot was this firestorm, 5,000 degrees at its epicenter, that everything combustible and everything deemed 'incombustible' burst instantly into flame. The conflagration consumed everything in an eight kilometer diameter in the first two seconds as superheated air expanded in a visible wave from the point of impact.

Rupturing natural gas lines added their own fuel to the inferno, the explosions visible in brief flashes within the miles wide field of flame.

The concussive force, now no longer superheated but still a devastating power, instantly blew apart every structure from nine to fourteen kilometers around.

As those on the bridge watched in horror the devastation spread. From fourteen kilometers out from the blast buildings toppled like rows of dominoes about the city, leveling everything within a twenty kilometer radius.

The rising cloud of pulverized earth, from a crater a kilometer wide and deep, rose toward the stratosphere and began raining super-hot lava and debris over the city. The cloud mercifully obscured everything from the ship as it spread to cover the conflagration, but on the surface the sun would be hidden for hours.

Even the outlying areas far from the epicenter, which had escaped the spreading destruction, with buildings only shattered or fractured rather than flattened, faced fallout they could not defend against. Already the super-hot fragments were creating and spreading fires in parts of the city that had 'escaped' the initial cataclysmic destruction.

Seattle was obliterated.

x

Hoshi leapt to her feet with a shriek: "ANDERSON!"

The woman literally jumped out of her seat, backing away toward the monitor. "Your Majesty, I'm sorry! You _specified_ 'full power'!"

Hoshi stared at the trembling woman, so appalled she was unable to speak. If she had a _phaser_ in her hand….

She turned to the burning city. Within the inner, eight kilometer ring there was nothing but fire. The inferno spread as winds brought the fire into the flattened and smashed ring. Soon it would encroach upon the toppled structures, even as sporadic fires from burning debris engulfed parts of the city that had been spared the cataclysmic force of the blast. Firefighting crews, even if they still existed, would not stop the destruction for _days_.

"Full power?" Hoshi managed to force a whisper through a throat tight with horror.

"The standard yield this ship uses for a payload is 3 ounces of antimatter. When you specified 'full power', the computer armed the torpedo from the antimatter magnetic stores with ten pounds."

Hoshi had not thought her blood could grow colder, but it did. "We hit that city with fifty times what we …." She turned toward the Science Station where Tina Parker sat, her face white. "How many?"

"Your Majesty, sensors cannot give an accurate reading," the woman temporized, "and historical data is –."

"_GUESS_!"

"Between 1.75 to 2 million in the inner fire zone, possibly 3 to 5 in the inner concussive ring," she said flatly, shock and dismay stealing her tone.

Hoshi clutched the arm of her chair, and needed Travis' help to sit back down. As she collapsed into the chair, she watched the spreading flame that had once been downtown Seattle. She looked up at Travis, but could not speak aloud. "I have to … have to …."

"Your Majesty, take this advice: No apology."

"I have …" she tried again, her voice choked with revulsion and disgust at what she had caused. "This isn't…" she couldn't think, shock overwhelmed her.

"No. Anything you can say in your condition will only weaken your position. Right now, unexpected though this was, they're _afraid_ of you." She looked up at him, naked horror on her face.

"I didn't want them to …."

She fell back in the seat, closed her eyes and put her head back, suddenly wishing for the high backed Captain's chair on Enterprise, praying to forget as the scene that played over and over again on her dark eyelids.

She felt Travis' hand on her arm, and when she opened her eyes again the message in his was clear. She allowed him to help her up, and tried to move slowly, steadily, tried not to stumble as he escorted her off her bridge.

xx

The turbolift descended three and a half decks on manual control when Hoshi twisted the handle of the support column and the car halted. She stood with hands pressed to her eyes, trying to regain her composure.

She couldn't.

"I've just _murdered_ …" she whispered, "…five _million_ people." There was nothing Travis could say, so he didn't try. "Five … _million_ … people."

"Your Majesty?" Travis enquired carefully

Hoshi turned to him, and when she lowered her hands she was sure he saw in her eyes the awful horror that she'll never escape. She stepped to him, put her face against his chest, losing sight of everything but the blood red before her. She closed her eyes, and as she felt Travis' hands tentatively touch her back, she began to cry.

xxx

When they reached the Captain's quarters, which she had appropriated as her own, Hoshi sat down heavily at the desk set directly in from the door. She reached out, turning on the monitor. "Computer – show me Seattle, Washington."

Well it was that the artificial intelligence controlling this ship didn't need any further instruction, for she was in no condition to clarify the order. In the screen before her, in full and terrible clarity, appeared a city _on fire_.

The signal was coming from a News Service, she did not hear or care which one, and it reported with great care how the destruction visible on the screen was punishment meted out for betrayal by the new Empress.

Hoshi muted the sound, unable to endure the voice which very cautiously spoke in support of the new Empress' action while at the same time detailing a disaster such as North America had never seen.

"Your Majesty, perhaps you should–"

"No. This is my fault. I have to see…." She turned the sound back on.

The report told of how the city was unprepared to deal with the disaster, with much of its Emergency Response Forces within the devastation zone.

As she stared, watching the fire burn from as close as the reporting facilities could get to the conflagration, she kept her hands clenched on the tabletop. Her long nails dug painfully into her palms, drawing blood. She needed this pain to retain her control, or she would begin to cry again and she didn't know if she could ever stop.

xxx

Three hours passed on the bridge in relative quiet. When Hoshi returned; and it had taken every second of those three hours before she felt she could gather the strength to see anybody; Winters reported that numerous communications were being received from the surface. They flowed in at an almost constant pace, all containing Pledges of Loyalty to the new Empress. Hoshi wondered how many she could trust unreservedly. She doubted it was many. They remained as shocked as she was by what she had done. They were afraid of her.

She was afraid of herself.

Hoshi had watched every second of the carnage on her monitor, had tapped into various News Services. Travis had tried to talk her out of watching, to protect her from her own guilt, but she could not keep from seeing her own butchery. The destruction in Seattle was total. Airships could not show anything in the fire zone, all was flame and carnage, choking smoke that obscured everything, carried along by winds for a hundred miles before it dissipated enough to see the ground.

Surviving fire suppression units could do nothing but ring the zone and try to keep the inferno from spreading. It would be hours or days before they would be able to begin shrinking the ring, and perhaps as much as a week before the fire would burn itself out.

She had stared at the damning images for as long as she could stand, unable to look away from the torment. Nobody could give an estimate of the number of casualties, but everybody within a ten kilometer radius of the blast was dead.

In her quarters she could not escape what she had done, and on the bridge monitor she saw a steadily lengthening black cloud, a dirty smudge across the northwest section of the Continent, spreading like a cancerous growth upon the Earth.

Hoshi knew she would carry this smear upon her soul for as long as she lived.

She stepped to her Command Chair, and settled into it, pretending as well as she could that she was not as devastated as she still felt.

x

Finally, she glanced at the chronometer. If his engines had not exploded – and a quick check with Anderson confirmed that they had not, Captain Matthew Tocari and the 'Vindicator' were due to drop out of warp in about five minutes. She wondered if he would come in shooting. They had to break orbit now in order to have maneuvering room.

"Oh, well," she said, trying to present to her crew a strong, blasé image she didn't feel, "we might as well go out to meet him."

She wondered why she tried. She wasn't as cold hearted as she wanted to project she was. These people knew better. She wasn't blasé, she wasn't cold or cool. The only thing cool was the layer of perspiration that glistened on her forehead. Inside, she was so sick she wanted to run from the bridge. She didn't want to confront the 'Vindicator'. She did not want to do anything but crawl into her bunk and pray the day had never happened.

xx

When the NX-17 battleship, so much like the late 'Enterprise' that for an instant Hoshi felt homesick, flashed out of warp less than five kilometers before their bow, it did indeed come in shooting, all phase cannons accompanying a barrage of torpedoes.

The tremendous 'Defiant', better than four times 'Vindicator's' size, hung unmoving and let the outermost of four layers of shields take the full barrage of the battleship's phasers.

And take it they did. The energy beams crackled against the invisible barrier far from the ship, washing space with the full spectrum of energy. The detonating torpedoes illuminated both starships with flashes of scintillating light that was visible to the naked eyes of observers on Earth.

For about a minute Hoshi and her fellows sat and watched as 'Enterprise's twin unleashed volley after volley of deadly energy and explosive missiles. The outer layer of 'Defiant's defenses were strengthened by vast engines that poured every erg of their tremendous output into those shields.

"Shield status?" Hoshi asked calmly. She was grateful she had regained enough control over her voice that she could pretend a calm she did not feel.

"Shield one is holding." Mayweather replied from the Helm/Weapons station, Stewart to his right at Navigation. "Shields two through four are ready to take up the load – if that ship ever decides to actually _fire_ on us."

She grinned at her bodyguard, and then glanced back at Winters. "Hail them."

"Frequency open." A moment later, the view changed to a bridge interior so familiar it could have been 'Enterprise's rather than 'Vindicator's. In the center seat sat the officer whose face had become so familiar to her. He sat rigid and tense. Hoshi allowed her own posture to visibly relax into an almost insolent manner.

"This is Empress Sato, and I have only one question: Are you _quite_ through?" She spoke as though bored with the entire display. But then her manner changed and her tone grew serious as she leaned forward. "This ship is the embodiment of military design and power over a hundred years in advance of anything the Empire had. I trust you are aware of what happened to Seattle?"

Even as she said the words, she felt her stomach clench, and fought not to be sick. She could not afford to show how she _really_ felt. She _needed_ an image of strength. "Your best efforts didn't even strain our first layer of shields."

"Maybe not, but we were bound to try. You are unfit to lead the Empire. Under your 'rule', we will know only chaos and destruction."

"On the contrary, under my 'rule' you shall have order. The Empire will thrive." This ship is NCC-1764. She didn't know the Federation Starfleet's nomenclature; were there really about 2,000 of these Starships? "With the force of a thousand 'Defiant's at our back we will be supreme throughout known space. The corruption and degradation of the old regime will be no more. It will be replaced by one of discipline and strength."

Tocari leapt to his feet. "I will never see the day I serve you!"

Hoshi shrugged. Inside she was screaming. She did not want to do this, but outwardly she knew she had to present an appearance of strength, of composure, of power. She had no _choice_. "As you wish."

She said this as 'casually' as she could manage. She was nauseated, and some part of her that had not died in Seattle was shrieking, but she could allow none of it to show on her face.

x

The forward phasers on the mighty starship erupted against the doubly reinforced polarized hull plating protecting the bridge of the 'Vindicator'. An instant later the hull above that bridge exploded in a blinding flash of polychromatic light and several human bodies were propelled into space by the force of expelled atmosphere.

The battleship, rocked by the tremendous explosion, started to spin downward, presenting its upper hull to the Federation starship. Where the bridge had stood, a gaping crater opened into B-deck.

"Activate tractors and hold that ship steady." The ship before them had spun upside down before energy beams caught and righted it. She touched a control on the right arm of her chair. "Transporter Room One?"

"Aye, your Highness?"

"Have you got that thing worked out?"

"Pretty much, your Majesty."

"Then start bringing the crew of the 'Vindicator' aboard. Beam them directly to the Shuttle Bay."

"Aye."

Hoshi turned back to Winters. "Tell Comman – I mean First Officer Tucker he's got that crew he was looking for. We can use another 80, and I have the feeling this group is going to be very cooperative indeed. Then get on to the Starfleet Corps of Engineers. Tell them the 'Defiant' is bringing in a battleship in need of repair."

xx

The 'Defiant' returned to its geosynchronous orbit over San Francisco after depositing the 'Vindicator' near the orbiting space dock. It was as though she had never left.

"I think it's about time I addressed by subjects," Hoshi mused. At least, out loud she did so. Inside she was sick, but she could not afford to show it to anyone.

"If I may, your Highness," Mayweather began diffidently as he resumed his place at her side, "may I first suggest a change of attire?"

She knew what he really meant. Despite her efforts to appear strong and confident, what she was feeling was still reflecting in her face, her manner. She was in no condition yet to present a favorable or impressive appearance to anyone. But he was also right about the point his words conveyed to the bridge.

She looked down at herself. She was still clad in the deep blue midriff uniform of an Imperial Starfleet Lieutenant, not the most impressive garment to appear in for her first visual communication with Earth.

She also understood that his words were designed to give her a reason to leave the bridge. He was right; she was in no condition to address anyone.

She looked up at him, smiling a smile that was half suggestive, half seductive and completely mendacious. It used to be so easy. Now she just wanted to get off the bridge without seeming to be escaping. "What would you suggest?" she asked in the most seductive tone she could manage.

"I think, somewhere on this ship, we can find something appropriate."

Of that she had no doubt. This crew had a complement of one hundred eighteen women. There was almost certainly some off-duty attire that would fit her that would be suitable for the first appearance of the new Empress.

She crossed the bridge to the Engineering station, Johnson from Environmental clearing aside for her. She consulted the computer for a list of the quarters of crewwomen whose bodies most closely matched hers. There were twenty nine choices.

xx

In the quarters of the third crewwoman Hoshi found something that suited her, a long red dress of astonishingly soft silk that she knew would cling to her body like a second skin. She directed Mayweather to wait in the corridor while she dressed.

There was no room for him in here anyway. The quarters were small, the outer room barely large enough for a desk and two chairs, and beyond a red grilled half partition was a bunk. It was in the closet next to the bunk that she had found the dress among some civilian attire and several brief gold scoop-necked uniform dresses bearing an elongated black star at the gold breast patch but no gold at the cuffs.

When he complied, she pulled down the front zipper of her Imperial uniform's brief top, pealed it off her and tossed it onto the bunk. Reaching behind her, she pulled the zipper of her pants over the curves of her derrière and then pushed the uniform off her bare legs. Now all she wore were her panties. She reached for the long dress, pulling it on over her head.

It was indeed tight, maybe too much so, for it was hard for her to breathe in it. When, with much pulling and wiggling, she got it settled and saw herself in the tall mirror on the wall beside the head of the bunk, it seemed as though the red material had been painted onto her. Unfortunately, it also showed the lines of her panties in clear detail.

Oh well, there was only one thing for it. Pulling the material up over her hips, which required a certain amount of wiggling; she lowered her panties and let them drop to the floor about her bare feet. Then she pulled the dress back down and smoothed it over her hips.

It was still quite snug, even on her slim body, and when she looked again into the mirror she saw the dress hugged her body closer than most of her past lovers. She would have to be careful how she walked, and if she took too deep a breath she might burst out of it. She could see the small bumps of her nipples, and looking lower she could trace with her eyes the curves of her more intimate region.

She was _definitely_ going to have to be very careful.

x

"Come in," she called loudly, readying herself. She had known Travis Mayweather for a long time; long before she had suborned him from Archer's 'employ', even before he had become Forrest's Chief Bodyguard. She valued his opinion as she did that of few others.

The moment he stepped into the room, turning to find her beyond the partition, standing beside the bunk, he smiled as his eyes took her in. But his eyes, his smile, were very 'familiar' indeed. "Wow!" he exclaimed. "Are you planning on Addressing them or seducing them?"

"I beg your pardon," she said, her voice cooling. She didn't appreciate the open disapproval in his tone. This was not the reaction she had hoped for. "This is what I will Address my Subjects in."

"All right, but you're making a big mistake."

She laughed, so surprised she let her guard down with him. "You're a M.A.C.O., not a Fashion Critic." She stepped closer, her every move one of sensual grace. When she stopped before him, she leaned in close. "Mind your place, mister," she told him, placing her hands on his hard chest, her voice lowering seductively even despite her annoyance with him. "I am _the_ most powerful woman in the entire galaxy."

x

She was about to slide her hands up his chest when he grasped her wrists in a tight grip, holding them together before her as she cried out in surprise. He bent down, forcing her to do so as well, and scooped up her discarded panties off the deck, rapidly twisting them around her wrists and knotting them, tying her tightly, all so quickly that she was bound before she could struggle.

"Travis, what the _hell_ are you doing?" she demanded as he forced her to her knees before the low bunk, knelt behind her and forced her to bend forward onto the mattress.

"Giving you just what you _need_." He grabbed the red silken material where it stretched very tightly across her bottom and pulled hard until it gave, rending loudly as she felt herself bared from shoulders to knees.

"_Travis_!" She tried to straighten but he held her down hard with one hand on her back, his other hand working his own clothes as he held her hips pressed tightly to the edge of the bunk with his own and she could feel the firm evidence of his arousal. She knelt, unable to pull her hands free from the knots her own panties had become. He used his knees to try to spread her, but her lower legs were still bound by the tight dress. Still, he managed to get her positioned to his satisfaction even against the dress' resistance.

"Let me up." She felt him behind her and, as excited as she was realizing she was becoming she still cried out. "Stop it now." She felt him touch her, his familiar flesh forcing her moistening flesh. "Stop or I'll kill _**YOU**_!" Her last word was a scream as he entered her and she realized she was barely open, barely ready for him. She couldn't say anything more as he forced her, pinned her down as she cried out helplessly, unable to restrain herself, unable to stop his brutal power.

She lay forward across the bunk, unable to rise, unable to resist or fight him as he moved hard behind her, within her, her every breath a tiny cry of pleasure as she was taken thoroughly. He slammed into her, driving her into the edge of the bunk, taking her with brutal force and her body responded with searing flashes of lust. In this position he was filling her more deeply, more urgently, than he ever had.

She barely knew at what point he lifted her off her knees and brought her down onto the bed; only that before she realized it she was face down and he was atop her, impaling her forcefully, driving her into the bed. She shifted her hips to open herself more accessibly to him, to let him in more deeply and he took every inch of her. She could barely breathe quickly enough; her every breath a cry of savage, primitive lust as he thrust her upward along the mattress, and she had to hold tightly to the sheet with her bound hands to try not to be pushed off.

She didn't know how long it went on. It _felt_ like an eternity. All she could think of was how everything she had done this day had so excited her – taking command, disposing of her enemies, assuming real power, even the destruction she'd thought would devastate her – had _excited_ her more than she had realized; that she needed this outlet, _needed_ this, until she was desperately rising to meet his powerful 'attack'.

She felt her orgasm building, and in seconds it burst upon her with the force of an exploding sun and her lustful cries turned to full bodied shrieks she barely muffled into the mattress.

x

When it was over, after a very long time but still, she realized, far sooner than she would have hoped, his weight was off her and she could turn around to look up at him. She raised her hands and he untied the knot of her panties, freeing her.

"You _raped_ your Empress," she whispered breathlessly.

"'_The_ most powerful woman in the entire galaxy'?" he repeated in almost mocking tones.

"Yes. And I am going to _kill_ you …" she breathed hotly, grasping his throat in her hands, surprised at the strength in his neck, "…if you don't do that again."


	5. A Leopard Never Changes!

Chapter Five

A Leopard Never Changes!

First Officer Charles Tucker entered the huge Shuttle Bay with the only surviving Engineer from 'Enterprise', Ensign Mary Sherman. They wore the uniforms of this ship, she the very brief red dress of the Federation. In her hand she carried an electronic clipboard.

He was armed with a tricorder slung from his shoulder and resting at his left hip, which device contained a roster of the crew of the ill-fated 'Vindicator'. A black sheathed dagger hung at his left hip, a fully charged Type-2 Phaser at his right hip; and a full detachment of M.A.C.O.s from both 'Enterprise' and 'Avenger' behind him.

He glanced at the redheaded Sherman beside him. She too wore a phaser at her right hip, but wore her razor sharp dagger below it in a black sheath. It was strapped about her bare right thigh, rather than at her left hip, the hilt level with her hand. She'd told him it got in the way when she lay on her left side to work, but he suspected she preferred it closer to her hand.

Before them in the vast rectangular bay, easily a hundred meters on the long side toward the two level high doors and the 6 shuttlepods that lined the bay, 3 to a side, were arrayed 81 crewmen of various ranks. There were 67 Terrans, 2 Vulcans, 4 Andorians, 6 Orions (female, thankfully) a Bolian and a Tellarite. This would almost double the 'Defiant' crew and bring them to about one third strength instead of one fifth.

"All right, listen up" he called. Such was the discipline of the Empire that he did not have to say it twice. The faces that turned to him showed carefully disguised resentment, shock and any number of other emotions he didn't particularly care about.

"I'm Commander Charles Tucker, First Officer of the 'Defiant', the Imperial Flagship that your Captain Tocari had the stupid idea of going up against. Take a good look at these uniforms; they're the new uniform of the Empire, come in red, gold and blue and you'll be wearing one just like them sooner than you think.

"Your vessel, minus its bridge, is slated for repair by the Starfleet Corps of Engineers. You are now crew of the I.S.S. 'Defiant'. Anyone who thinks differently is invited to put a phase pistol to his or her own head; but don't do it where we'll have to clean it up.

"Your duty roster aboard the 'Vindicator' is now in effect. You will be doing the same jobs, except you'll do it on a ship a hundred years ahead of anything you've dreamed. I hope you're all quick studies, because you're going to be working twelve hour shifts and you're expected to know your jobs _today_.

"Those who do well will have the satisfaction of working aboard the Imperial Flagship, with all the perks that come with that position. Those who don't will find themselves falling back down to Earth and we won't even waste a body bag.

"Any questions?" There was utter silence. "I didn't think so. When I call your name, step forward and receive your assignment and quarters." He looked down at the black and silver tricorder in his hand, very pleased with what he found displayed upon the screen. "Veron–"

"Go to Hell!"

He looked up. That was a male voice. "Who spoke?"

From within the crowd a tall man pushed forward. His uniform and medals showed him to be a well honored soldier of the Empire. "I did. Commander Robert Harriman, Chief Engineer of the 'Vindicator', and I repeat: You and that slut bitch who thinks she has a set of balls can go to Hell."

Harriman was clearly a C.E., he hadn't needed to introduce himself. Years of exposure to an inadequately shielded Warp engine left him looking no better for than Tucker did. No one who lasted long enough to rise to Chief Engineer ever could; the shielding needed to protect operators, particularly those who had worked on the 'Archer Albatross' for the most years, from long-term exposure would be so bulky there would be no room in Engineering in which to work.

"Step out here," Tucker invited. He waited until the man had stridden five paces from the group, then dropped his hand to the phaser at his belt and fired from the hip.

The blue beam caught the man in the stomach, and his shipmates gasped in horror as he gave less than half a scream as his body dissolved, eaten by the red energy and he was gone.

The crew of the 'Vindicator' stared, appalled, at the spot where their Chief Engineer had been. No one could to find a trace of him. Tucker again raised his tricorder. "Veronica Aarens – Engineering."

xxx

When Empress Hoshi Sato finally arrived on the bridge, accompanied by her Chief Bodyguard, she felt infinitely more satisfied and relaxed. She also wore a slightly looser but still flattering jade green dress from her own native land – or at least a version of it. The high necked, traditional Japanese garment was embroidered with red and gold dragons, something that she was tempted to make her own official image, if she could find an artist who could do a seductive and sexy dragon.

She returned the Imperial Salute of her bridge officers smartly, thinking with a smile that she could easily get used to this. She stepped to the raised central Command Chair on jade, high heeled slippers and assumed her place upon her throne. She adjusted her long flowing black hair so it fanned out behind her.

"Is the communications link ready?" she asked Grace Winters, not glancing back.

"We are tied in through the satellite network to transmit to every receiving station on Earth, your Majesty. Live video and audio feed to every point on the globe as well as full subspace transmissions to all ships, colonies, subject worlds, space stations and bases in range. Those at the edge of our transmission limits already have orders to 'forward' the message to the edges of the Empire."

"Excellent." She settled herself in the chair and glanced up at Travis. He took a step to the side, leaving her alone. "You may begin."

She heard the musical sound of the circuit being activated, and slowly counted to five, giving everyone a chance to get a good look at their new leader. Then she smiled sweetly.

x

"I am Empress Hoshi Sato. By now you are all aware that, for his crimes of corruption and inefficiency, I have executed the former Emperor Robert MacNamara and have assumed Command of the Empire.

"Also executed are the former Regent William Harris and, for their corruption, incompetence and criminal negligence that have led this Empire to the brink of extermination at the hands of alien dissidents, I have executed all the top military officers who had been present in the destroyed Admiralty headquarters. Whether summary executions of other inefficient officers continue depends entirely upon their _new_ efficiency and loyalty to the Empire.

"You have also witnessed the annihilation of a faction in Seattle, Washington that 'secretly' sought to overthrow my reign. All loyal soldiers and citizens of the Empire are advised to be unswerving in your loyalty. There are no secrets from me, and I dispense only one punishment for disloyalty.

"In due time, new high ranking officers will be selected from among those loyal men and women who serve the Empire. Under their leadership, the insurrection that has been plaguing our way of life and dominance of the galaxy will be extinguished.

"I command the most advanced, powerful and impregnable starship in space, but this is just the first of a new Fleet of ultra powerful starships that will make the Empire invincible throughout the galaxy. You have already seen the weapons aboard this ship. One torpedo was all that was needed to annihilate my enemies.

"For the moment, I will run the Affairs of State from the 'Defiant', with Ministers and Imperial Officers attending upon me here. In due time, I will notify you when I will transfer the seat of power to the Imperial Palace.

"Several changes in Imperial Policy have already been implemented, with more to come in the near future. Officers of the Empire will appear among you carrying your new orders. You will find, as always, that obedience to the Empire will be most pleasant and profitable.

"Empress Sato, out."

She heard the sound of the transmission terminated and sat back in her chair with a heavy sigh, again wishing for a higher backed chair.

"Are you all right, your Highness?" Mayweather asked solicitously.

"I hate doing television."

xxx

Phlox looked up from the monitor on his desk; pausing the readout when the door to Sick Bay swished open and two females entered. The first was a tall Terran with a figure many of his human colleagues would term 'statuesque', the latter somewhat shorter and younger. The first wore the two piece uniform with the shoulder bars, two silver stripes under a diamond shaped cluster, the mark of an Imperial Lieutenant Commander, carried herself with the typical air of confidence of a Terran, her long brown hair cast back behind her. The other, a petite blonde, wore the same somewhat revealing uniform but without rank ornamentation, save that they both wore the insignia of the Imperial Medical Corps.

"Doctor Phlox?" the taller woman asked. He nodded, his expression carefully giving nothing away. "I'm Dr. Dina Samuels, CMO of the 'Vindicator'. This is my Nurse, Yeoman Catherine Roehm."

"Welcome aboard," the dark Denobulan said to his new colleague. "It will be good to have some help. Since the destruction of the 'Enterprise', I've been working alone."

"Not to worry, Doctor; we'll soon have everything in order."

Phlox was not certain he liked the tone of this. In fact, he decided he definitely did not. "You'll find the equipment here to be very advanced, far beyond Imperial standards."

"My orders from your First Officer are to make this technology the new Standard of the Empire. We're to learn to operate this equipment, then disseminate the knowledge throughout the Fleet."

Phlox nodded, pursing his lips in consideration. "An ambitious project; especially for someone who has barely learned to operate the warp engines. Still, I'll be grateful to have you for an assistant."

"Assistant?" Dina Samuels repeated the word as if it had a foul taste. "I don't _think_ so. I have been Chief Medical Officer of the 'Vindicator' for five years. I'm hardly likely to step down to be anyone's 'assistant'."

"CMO of the 'Vindicator'," Phlox repeated in a faux impressed tone which quickly faded. "As I understand it, the 'Vindicator' has just had its head shot off. _I_ am CMO of the 'Defiant'; you will be working for _me_."

"I'm sorry, what was your rank again?" she asked sweetly, then 'remembered'. "Oh, yes, you don't _have _one. Well, Doctor, when you conscript officers of another ship, as the Empress has done, you have to expect a little reshuffling of assignments when integrating the new crew. For instance, _I_ am a Terran Lieutenant Commander aboard this _Terran_ starship. I think you'll understand what that means."

"You may be a Terran with rank," Phlox said tightly, standing, "but I have been CMO of the Empress' ship for four years. I think _you_ will find which of us will have seniority here."

"Then we shall see." She then adopted a show of magnanimity. "I am, however, sure that we will be able to work together, to come to a suitable accord. As I understand it, for this ship to be fully outfitted, it will require a crew three times larger than it presently has. There will be plenty of work to go around."

"If the Empress conscripts any more crews, you may even find yourself subject to the same thing you are trying to do here. But until I hear otherwise, _I_ am the CMO of this ship, you two are my staff, and you will conduct yourselves as such."

"Time will tell, Doctor," Dr. Dina Samuels said with a confident smile. "Time will tell."

xxx

Lt. Ann Anderson made it back to her assigned quarters on Deck 7 and locked the door behind her.

She had managed to get through the hours on the Bridge, carefully performing her duties, fulfilling all directions with alacrity and thoroughly motivated efficiency, while otherwise drawing no attention to herself.

She considered it luck, pure and simple, that she had survived the destruction of Seattle. She had only been following orders, true, but if Major Reed were on his feet Hoshi might well forget her desire for a 'spy'.

Now, locked in the 'safety' of her modest quarters, she tried to force her tensed muscles to relax.

'Safety' was as much a lie as 'privacy'. Each and every section of the ship was equipped with emergency monitors and sensors.

These monitors, as the name implied, were for emergencies and were normally turned off. They were intended to be used to locate a crewman in the event of a cataclysmic accident or attack, or to observe parts of the ship in an emergency. They were not intended for surveillance of that crew.

The Empire, however, had other priorities and regularly used just such methods of surveillance in their efforts to promote and maintain loyalty. When it had been found that this ship was equipped with such devices, she had been ordered to activate all the internal monitors – including her own.

The monitoring could be automatic and recorded for later review, compilation and analysis; but it was frequently done manually, therefore was not constant and was usually random – and undetected. In addition to her many duties on the Bridge, this was one of her assignments.

This was standard procedure in the Empire, a fact that everyone knew, took for granted and tried one's best to ignore. To constantly dwell on the fact that one could be observed at any moment, that her relief could be sitting at her station right now watching her, would lead to madness. Everybody knew it was happening; everybody ignored it or they would go insane.

Deciding she was not, at this moment, under scrutiny, Ann focused upon her more immediate concern; the pain that had been her constant companion since her 'lesson'.

Pulling off the brief, scoop-necked, light blue 'Sciences' uniform dress she wore was a challenge. She moved slowly, not wanting to inflame any more pain, but no matter how careful she was, every part of her body hurt.

Draping the 'minidress' over the back of a chair, clad now only in the blue 'panties' and black boots, she looked sadly at her bruised body in the full length mirror.

In the hours since she had been roughly escorted to her station, the scores of dark bruises had darkened to full ripe.

Travis Mayweather was skilled at inflicting pain and punishment, but she had never appreciated this until his attentions had been turned upon her. There had been little excess of motion, but the punches he'd inflicted upon her had been powerful indeed.

Turning, she saw there was barely an inch of her; front, back and sides, that was not bruised. He'd never hit her high enough or low enough for the painful bruises to be visible beyond the coverage of her uniform, but within those limits he had been thorough indeed.

It would take at least two weeks for the ugly mottling to fade, and before they did she knew they were that kind that were going to turn a sickly shade of green.

She considered, and quickly dismissed, the idea of going to Phlox, either for treatment or for something to relieve the pain. This assault had been the Empress' concept of a 'lesson'. If she were to try to circumvent it, and Sato found out – as she certainly would – the next lesson would be far more severe.

Pushing the uniform into a recycling port, she lay down upon her bunk with a groan, trying to find a position that didn't hurt. She looked at the chronometer: 2017. With two Tactical / Sensor specialists assigned so far to Bridge duty, 0800 would come all too soon.

x

She had learned that even if she didn't manually order the lights out, if she lay still for five minutes, the light would go out automatically, and would remain so until either her verbal command or her movements informed the computer that she was awake.

Hurting as she was, she was grateful for small favors. Ann was left to herself, to her own thoughts.

_Sato_!

She had ordered this beating as a lesson. Well, Ann would learn her lesson, well and most thoroughly. And she would serve the Empress most assiduously, she would be a model officer and an exemplary spy.

But the day would come; yes, it would come, when Ann Anderson would better the lesson.

xxx

Ensign Mary Sherman was grateful for the automatic doors of this new ship, which swished aside as she approached her quarters. She was too tired even to push a button. As she entered the small room, the work and bunk areas separated by a short partition, she sighed feelingly, allowing the exhaustion she had been fighting to wash over her.

The room she was in was strange, hardly felt like home. She still measured time aboard this ship in terms of hours, not days, and she had spent the vast majority of each in Engineering, trying to learn the vastly complicated systems she had to deal with.

Even with the revised schedule, she should have been off her extended duty shift at twenty hundred, over three hours ago; but that was before the arrival of eleven Engineers from the 'Vindicator'. In one sense it had been good news; the Engineering crew now numbered twenty rather than nine. The bad news was that someone had to brief them and bring them up to speed; or try to – and guess who Tucker had assigned to that job?

x

She had never liked Tucker, certainly he gave her plenty of reasons not to trust him. The first day she'd met him she'd hated him, within a week she'd detested him. Tucker was a sexual sadist; every woman on the 'Enterprise' knew it. Every woman on Enterprise had been the Commander's victim.

Fully capable of enjoying sensual sexual encounters, he nonetheless achieved fullest satisfaction in forcing, in conquering, women and taking what he wanted with unnecessary brutality. Compliance or cooperation was not as satisfying as breaking down resistance, often leaving his 'companion' in need of Phlox's aid.

It had been different when the slaves had been aboard, particularly the green Orion Leena and the golden Auran Tia Anlor. He'd especially enjoyed brutalizing the young Auran. She'd always tried to resist, and suffered worse than any other slave until the day he'd stabbed her to death and left her corpse to be disposed of as so much garbage, her body soaked in a pool of golden blood.

With the deaths of all the slaves in their failed escape, the Terran women once again found themselves prime subjects for Tucker's attention. Those who complied received less injury than those who resisted, but on the whole there had been only two who escaped Tucker's demands; T'Pol, who outranked him and Sato who, as Captain's Woman, was out of him reach unless he wanted to commit suicide. Every other woman aboard lived in perpetual danger of being at Charles Tucker's mercy.

x

When the door shushed closed behind her she realized she had been on her feet for twenty three hours. It was not a personal record, but she did not want to challenge that record by one second further.

Reaching down to her right thigh, she undid the strap holding her dagger sheath onto her leg just below the too-brief hem of her red uniform dress, placing the sheath and sharp blade on her desk. She didn't like the knife at her hip, it kept getting in her way when she worked, but she preferred it in easy reach by her hand if needed. Now she just preferred it _off_.

Grasping the edge of the desk in an effort not to fall on her face from sheer physical and mental exhaustion, she brought her right leg up high enough to reach the zipper of her calf high black boot, pulled it down and tugged the boot off, let it drop to land wherever it would. She did the same with her left boot, balancing herself with the desk, too bleary-eyed to care where the boots landed. She would deal with them in the morning. She tugged her socks off as well, just let them fall.

Sighing with pleasure at the sensation of the thin carpet on her bare feet, she allowed herself to stagger into the smaller section of the room, past the partition, not even forcing her eyes to focus. She could make out where the bunk was, knew it had a blanket tucked with military neatness upon it, and that was all she cared about.

Coming up next to the bed, using her knee to balance herself and keep on her feet for another twenty seconds longer, she reached down and grasped the short hem of her red uniform dress, pulled it up her body and over her head with a gratified sigh and shook her now disheveled red hair free. She dropped the red uniform onto the bunk without even forcing herself to see it, bent and pushed her red underpants and panties off, stepped out of them. Gathering the material in her hands, she turned toward the recycling unit and dropped the bundle with a startled scream.

"Very nice," Charles Tucker told her appreciatively from the chair tucked in the corner, his eyes stroking her nude body.

x

"What the _Hell_ are you doing in here?" She cried, so outraged she didn't care about his rank, discipline or anything else. She held one arm pressed across her breasts, her other hand trying to obscure her crotch. Her small hand couldn't even cover the thatch of red hair above her pubes.

"Relax," he advised, enjoying the view and her distress. He stood up, took a step closer and she backed away. But with the bunk at her right and the wall closet at her left, there was nowhere to retreat in the small space left to her. "I just came to tell you something."

"And it couldn't _wait_?" she cried; sleep banished. As she stared at the radiation scarred face of the Chief Engineer, all she could think of was the last time he had gotten her alone in an enclosed space, and the horrible things he had done to her.

She looked for the dagger that had been attached to her right thigh all day, saw through the red grill that it lay on the desk in the next room, far from being able to do her any good.

"Not really, no. You see, I've come to a decision." He took another step closer into the limited space past the foot of the bunk. She backed further away, her back colliding with the mirrored bulkhead at the head of her bunk. They were barely three feet apart.

"We've taken on a lot of new crew, but I want someone in charge down there who I know can do the job, and who I can trust. So I'm promoting you to Assistant Chief Engineer with the rank of Lieutenant Commander, effective immediately."

Mary, having feared the worst, was so surprised she almost let her hands fall, but stopped herself just in time. "Than – thank you, sir. But–" she hesitated, uncertain of how to phrase this. "It's just that … well, I don't want you to think I'm not grateful, but don't promotions usually involve _clothes_? Things like _epaulets_? I mean, it's a little unusual to be discussing promotion while I'm _naked_!"

"Come now, Commander," Tucker smiled, and she didn't like that smile one bit. It was too appreciative, too predatory. "Don't you know that this is how most women _get_ promoted?" He took another step closer – _too_ close. So close she could feel his heat. "And I should think you would be _appreciative_."

"The last time we were alone you _hurt_ me. _Badly_. You're never gentle to _anyone_! You were so _brutal_ I was bruised there for two _weeks_."

x

He reached for her body, got under her guard and got one arm about her, yanking her to him. His right hand closed hard on her breast, squeezed it sharply as she screamed in pain.

"You should know I've never _cared_ how any of you feel."

She tried to pry his hand from her breast, digging her nails into his hand. He forced her back against the tall mirror and released her breast only long enough for his fist to slam into her sensitive pubes. Mary shrieked, doubled over, unable to fight as he turned her about, pressed her toward the bunk. He grabbed her breast again, squeezed harder, almost crushing her sensitive flesh as he shoved her backward. She shrieked, overwhelmed by pain and terror as she landed on the bunk. He forced her legs apart with his and came down upon her.


	6. Imperial Policy

Chapter Six

Imperial Policy

Empress Hoshi Sato stepped onto her bridge at 0800, following Travis Mayweather and Paul Estes, who held their phaser rifles trained upon the Bridge Crew until they saw there was no opposition. However, though they raised their weapons, they didn't relax their vigilance for a moment.

Her officers snapped to Attention, faced her and executed the new Imperial Salute with sharp precision. She returned it, utterly satisfaction.

This morning she wore a long white gown of the finest, most luxurious silk; which both draped and hugged her figure in the most flattering manner. She had discovered its design in the computer records of the ship, and from thence it was a simple matter to order the computer to construct it. It had been fascinating to see it go from concept to reality, when it had come from behind one of the multitude of materialization consoles scattered about the ship. She wished she could have watched the process before the protective panel had been raised. Maybe she would order them replaced by clear barriers.

It was a good day. She felt extremely refreshed; the result of an excellent night's sleep following the skillful attentions of her Chief Bodyguard, who had again proven himself even more imaginative and talented than he had been yesterday afternoon. She grinned at the private thought, wondering just how many 'chief bodyguards' brought so much work to the office. She was sure the number was very low indeed.

"What news from below?" she asked the Beta shift Communications Officer standing to her right. Richard Malloy had already turned over the board to Grace Winters, but knew better than to depart without making his report.

"Your Excellency, the Council of Ministers – there are thirteen survivors – have formally acknowledged you as Empress and pledge their undying support."

"Undying." She smiled. "Yes, I am sure that's their true prayer."

"They beg leave to attend you and earnestly solicit your orders."

She turned to Grace Winters, seated at the console. "Contact them. Tell them I will meet first with the Minister of Arms. He is to be prepared to beam aboard this ship in twenty minutes to discuss a plan for dealing with the rebel forces. I shall then meet with each of the other Ministers singly in turn."

"Yes, your Highness." She turned to accomplish that duty.

"The highest ranking Starfleet officer," Malloy continued, "is Vice Admiral MacConnacle. He was in Scotland and did not make it to San Francisco in time to attend the meeting about Captain Archer."

"I trust he'll be more efficient in the future," Hoshi replied with a wry smile.

"He has issued orders for all the Armed Forces and all remaining ships of the Fleet to acknowledge you as Supreme Commander. They are to stand by and await your orders."

Hoshi Sato couldn't be happier. While she had rested and refreshed herself after a trying and stressful day, her position as Ruler of the Terran Empire had been secured. With the political and military forces supporting her, she was now firmly in command of the Galaxy.

Stepping down to her Command Chair and seating herself upon her throne, she allowed the pleasure to wash over her, suffuse her, fill her and sate her – and then she let it go.

x

She knew, and could never dare forget, that she ruled a race of strong and proud people who respected power; and followed willingly that person who could prove that she could hold and wield power. She also knew that, should she ever fail to exercise that power successfully and wisely – in that order – then she herself would suffer the same fate as her late, unlamented predecessor. There would be a phaser beam in her future, perhaps one from this future ship, and it was unlikely that it would be set to preserve her lovely body.

For now, she commanded the strongest and most successful men and women in the Empire, but only so long as she was strong and successful. Or at least until she did not have the overpowering might of the 'Defiant' in her hands.

She would have the loyalty and obedience of the most capable men and women in the galaxy, until the day came when she either could not put down the rebellion among the alien races that were subject to the Empire; or she met someone more ambitious than most, who thought he had a good enough plan and the backing to carry it through.

She wondered which might come first.

x

She had been a Communications Officer just days ago; a Lieutenant; a 'Captain's Woman' who knew how to use her mind and body to accomplish her goals; who had ridden the train of power through Forrest and Archer. She'd let the latter act openly to establish his plan for power until she was ready to take it away from him. She'd worked in the background to establish her own position, suborning Archer's best people until he had cleared the path and she was ready to make her move. She had then gone - at a mind-shattering pace - from Lieutenant to Empress.

Of the greatest importance, if she was ever going to sit upon her throne, let alone stay there, was how she could cement her power. For that she needed three things: the true and faithful loyalty of her subjects in the political and military arenas; a strong leadership to fill the void left by the extermination of the top Officers of the Empire and the defeat of the greatest threat the Empire had ever known, the coalition of worlds who had risen up to rebel against Imperial domination.

If she failed in any of those key areas, she knew that her reign would not be long and she would not be missed.

x

This ship could defeat any number of rebel warships arrayed against it – except that it was not out there challenging any rebels. It was here, in orbit of Earth, protecting and cementing her power by the strength of its phasers and photon torpedoes, by the secret might of its advanced scientific instrumentality and by the vast knowledge contained in its staggering computer banks. She was not ready to send it out against the enemies of the Empire. She could not go with it, nor could she be without it.

The problem, then, was how to use it to win this war while keeping it in orbit about Earth?

"Mister Mayweather."

"Your Majesty?"

She stood up. "Walk with me to the Briefing Room. I want your insight before I meet with the Minister of Arms."

xxx

Simon Margan, Minister of Arms, was a darkly attired, white haired man who carried a walking stick and pompousity with equal dexterity. Hoshi decided in the first three seconds of meeting him that she didn't like him, and considered relieving him of both affectations.

She tempered herself, however. Yesterday had been a day for annihilating people. Today she needed a better plan.

x

"You want to _what_?" The man exclaimed, astounded, five minutes into the meeting.

He had greeted her with all the proper shows of respect, from the new Imperial Salute to dropping down on one knee before her before being given leave to rise and assume a chair at the Briefing Room table. Hoshi was sure that these shows were much like he had favored the former Emperor with. She doubted MacNamara had believed their sincerity either.

When Margan had listened to her 'proposal' and returned so shocked an answer, Hoshi believed it was probably the first truly honest and guileless response he had given to anything in a long time.

Nevertheless, she was not through surprising him.

x

"This ship is the ultimate power in the galaxy. Its speed is many times that of our most powerful battleships. They risk flying apart at warp 5; this ship is designed for normal cruising, for weeks at a time, at warp 6. We fight at warp 8, with an emergency speed of warp 9.95. Our phasers can destroy a battleship, a city or a moon with equal ease. You saw what one torpedo at minimal setting did to the Admiralty building, and another to the dissidents in Seattle."

She watched his face cloud with pain. The lesson of Seattle would resonate through the Empire for many years to come.

"It is, however, one ship. The rebels have our Fleet outnumbered and outgunned. We are fighting a losing battle. They have too many ships and are scattered too widely for us to work effectively."

"We have too few ships," the man concurred. "Yet you damaged the 'Vindicator' so severely that she will be out of operation for a month. By the time it is back on the line, we could all be learning to speak Andorian."

"I am not here to debate Imperial policy with you, but to _give_ it to you!"

It was well for the man's health that he knew when to shut up.

x

"Thus far I have shared with the Fleet, and our enemies who have most certainly been listening to our communications, the story of the strength of this ship. It is, however, only one vessel and will remain so for quite some time. It is true that in time this will be the model of a vast fleet of ships, but for now it is unique.

"Our enemies are watching, and waiting. They know we are strong, but have no idea _how_ strong. I require two things of you."

"And what are they, my Empress?"

"First, your support to the story that, thus far, the 'Defiant' has used only the smallest part of its might. It is capable of more – far more. In reality this ship can defeat a task force. From you I want it known that it can defeat a _Fleet_!"

The old man nodded. "A prudent tactic. They won't believe; but they will hesitate. They will _know_ we are exaggerating, but they will not know by how much."

"While they are uncertain, I will introduce to them my new policy. We are going to win with diplomacy, with negotiation, what cannot be won with phasers."

x

Margan could not hide his surprise, but his Empress was not finished.

"Under the 'leadership' of Robert MacNamara, if that word could ever be used to describe the policies of so narrow-minded a fool, the resources and strengths of all the subject worlds of the Empire were channeled _into_ the Empire. Those worlds gave everything they had; resources, wealth, people, and got nothing out of it. _That_ was why they rebelled.

"MacNamara's answer to this was to crush them, to throw Imperial military might at these planets. As a result, he spread our forces so thin they couldn't support or even back themselves up. He completely underestimated the Rebels' strength. He, and the Admiralty, thought they were dealing with backwater peoples who had not learned the technology we imposed upon them. He, and the Admiralty, set a course we could not _possibly_ win.

"The brilliant tactician Edward Smith once said that 'to overestimate an enemy is at worst an unnecessary precaution; to underestimate him can be disastrous'. MacNamara either could not or would not learn that lesson. The result is where we find ourselves on the verge of defeat if not for the 'Defiant'. If not for one ship."

"And your new policy?" He was smart enough not to sound as mocking in voice as he was in thought.

x

"I intend to return a measure of autonomy to the subject worlds. Right now we devote too much of our effort and resources to controlling them. Worse, we use the resources of Andoria to keep Berengaria under our thumb, while Berengarian might goes to suppress Malcadia, and we use the Malcadians to help us control Andoria. In reality it's not that simple; the complexity is not three levels thick, but twenty, thirty, fifty.

"In the end, we put so much effort into controlling our conquered territories that control is an illusion."

"And you have a better way?"

"I've found a better model, yes. I can't tell you all the details, but in broad it turns a completely repressive control into a cooperative one. The goal will be to make everybody work _together_ to a plan. Right now, the Empire doesn't grow – it expands. When we need something, we conquer new territories, new planets. It just gives us more to control, when what we really needed were the resources we had but couldn't cooperate among ourselves well enough to use."

"Cooperate among ourselves?" He said it like it was a totally foreign concept. "We are the Empire. We do cooperate on Earth."

Hoshi closed her eyes, realizing this man's were as figuratively so as she was doing literally. She knew she could talk herself hoarse and he would never understand. But there would be others.

"Fine."

x

"And the second thing you need from me?"

Here, at least, she thought she was on firmer ground with a Minister of Arms, someone who had devoted himself to war and knew only strength. "I need a crew. Three hundred of your very best, most intelligent and capable men and women. I don't need _toadies_; I don't need dumb soldiers or 'yes' men. I need the best, smartest and most capable people in the Service. I need you to hand pick them for ability and loyalty. They must be ready and able to learn systems their grandchildren weren't going to be ready for. And I need all of this immediately."

x

Simon Margan had been Minister of Arms for a long time, having served two capable Emperors. He didn't think much of this woman's plans, and was certain that her blood would grace the Throne Room within a week. "Anything else, your Supremacy?" he asked with a light air. "Phobos and Deimos in ballet orbits about Mars, say?"

Hoshi Sato leaned forward, and where the man's smile had been slightly mocking, hers was glacial. "I hope you enjoyed your final indulgence of wit in this lifetime, because I promise you that if I ever have reason to question the loyalty of anybody you place aboard this ship, you will watch your three granddaughters executed by slow torture."

Minister Margan had served two Emperors, and now one Empress, in his long term in office, and he had been threatened with much in his days. Several times, on matters of grave import, his family had been threatened.

But looking into this woman's eyes, this was the very first time he believed it.


	7. Who do you trust

Chapter Seven

"Who do you trust…"

After her conference with Minister Margan, in which she had considered several times the advisability of removing him from office – she might remove him permanently from _everything_ if he failed her – she decided to take stock of her resources.

Entering Sick Bay, she found the dark Denobulan attentive on his work. He did, however, set it aside and stood up as she entered. "Your Highness?"

"I'm here for an update on Malcolm Reed."

He did not point out she could have used the intercom, as she had before, to obtain this information. He was, in fact, quite glad to see her; if he could ever be said to be glad to see anybody.

He reflected on how much she, and things, had changed in just the few short days since they had stood together outside the Decon Chamber, she translating and he influencing the captured Tholain to be more cooperative. "He's right in here," he said, indicating the doorless portal to her left. When she turned and preceded him into the room, she found Reed laying on the closest biobed just beyond the door.

"I still have him sedated," Phlox explained. "Better than to listen to his chatter. He should make a complete recovery, not even any scars." He looked at Hoshi. "Unless, of course, you want some."

Hoshi turned to him, surprised, and realized a moment later that he was serious. "No, thanks."

"Pity, I've always felt battle scars give a Terran's face character"

"I think he can do with a little less 'character'."

"As you wish." He turned away from his patient, dismissing him from his attention with discomforting ease. "I did want to ask if you had given any thought to my proposal?"

"What proposal is that?" she asked, mystified.

"I sent you a communiqué this morning."

Hoshi sighed. "Doctor, I am a very busy woman."

"I refer to the Agony Booth. Though it was created aboard Enterprise, I find we have all the technology to produce it here. In fact, I think it would be even more efficient than we–"

"No."

"No? I would think you would jump upon this opportunity."

"I'm trying to find a _new_ way of enforcing discipline. Some way of instilling loyalty without having to resort to force – or punishment. I don't like the idea of this Booth, or the simple, convenient way it inflicts torture. Using neural fields to stimulate pain…. There should be consequences to the inflictor of pain as well as to the recipient. This device makes it too easy, too convenient, too …. There is no incentive to moderate the torture. You could leave someone in there for hours."

"Days."

"And there is no inconvenience for you. Just push a button and walk away. No, Doctor, that's a level of … convenient cruelty I will not let us descend to. We'll find another way. Some way that will allow us to retain our 'humanity'."

He tried not to show his disappointment. Ever since he had discovered that this ship had the required technology in abundance, he had been hard at work in planning the new construction. "As you wish."

She started to turn away.

"There is another thing I wanted to discuss."

Hoshi's mind was on the series of meetings she has with the various Ministers, trying to think of how to get them on board with her plans for revising Imperial Policy toward the alien subject races, and she pulled herself back from this.

"Yes?" She can't keep a note of impatience out of her voice. She had already spent more time here than she had intended. She had a galaxy to run, a war to win.

"I refer to this Dr. Dina Samuels, former Chief Medical Officer of the 'Vindicator'. She came in here some time ago behaving like she is the CMO of _this_ ship. I told her–"

"She _is_ the CMO of this ship," Hoshi informed him curtly.

x

Phlox tried his best to keep his reaction from showing on his face, but the blow had been heavy indeed. "I see." He tried to take her decision in stride, but did not do well. After four years together, he had counted upon her support.

"Don't feel badly, she's not appointed yet. For _now_, you are CMO, and will be for as long as I am aboard. But I have another, more important assignment for you, one in which you will not miss these technological marvels, for you will be in charge of recreating them in the Imperial Palace. I want you to be my Personal Physician."

"I'm honored," he told her, losing his downcast demeanor.

"Don't be. I don't make this decision lightly. In fact, I feel it's a mistake, but I have little choice but to take the chance."

"I'm flattered by your confidence," he told his Empress with as much irony as he dared show.

"I killed the Emperor," she 'reminded' him. "I'm hardly likely to put myself _blindly_ into the hands of his Doctors. You served 'Enterprise' for four years. I've known you, known your abilities, and up until two days ago I even trusted you. But that's changed."

"Captain Archer intended to kill the Emperor. I was obligated as a Physician to try to save his life."

"You nearly got us all killed!"

"I'm sorry about that, but I was under an obligation. I did not know that Crewman Soval and Commander T'Pol intended to destroy _this_ ship, merely to sabotage it."

"Then you are not the clear thinker I gave you credit for being."

"I am prepared to pay the price for my actions."

Hoshi drew closer. "Trust me, Doctor; if I had another Doctor, you would pay that price. Ironically, however, I trust you more than I do Dina Samuels or any of the Imperial Physicians – and I don't trust you."

"As your Personal Physician, I am obligated to put your life and well being above all others."

She scrutinized him closely, trying her best to read him, and failing. She was not used to failing to read a person. That talent, more than any other, had kept her alive, and had allowed her to come as far as she had as quickly as she had. But now she could not make it work. "You Denobulans have some strange ideas about ethics."

"Not really. They are simply less convoluted than those of Terrans."

"Tell me something." It was less of a command from an Empress than a request by an old friend. "Why should I trust you? Any other man I put myself into the hands of, I have my guards, or I can threaten or bribe him."

"You cannot threaten me. You need my willing cooperation and help. And you have no one to threaten me _with_. I'm not married, I have no children – at least none I know of. You cannot bribe me. As your Personal Physician I would already have everyone I could possibly want. All you have left is my Word."

She didn't miss his revealing slip, neither would she call attention to it. Instead she observed that "That's usually considered a Terran bond."

"Funny how the universe works," he observed with a smile drowning in irony.

She thought about it for a moment.

"Make your preparations to move down to the Imperial Palace. You'll accompany me when I leave."

xx

Hoshi left the Sick Bay, finding Travis Mayweather in the corridor where he belonged. She paused for a moment, trying to get the bad taste out of her mind.

She regarded the tall black man for some moments, trying to put her mind back into order. "Walk with me, Travis," she told him unnecessarily. He was her shadow until she decreed otherwise – which was for as long as he lived. He walked a half step behind her, his hand lightly gripping the power pack / handle of the phaser attached to his uniform pants, his eyes alert for any potential danger, even on a ship that was barely a third crewed. They had the corridor all to themselves, and even if they did not, a simple word from her would be enough to clear it.

"I have half a dozen more Ministers to see today. Next is the Minister of Finance," she said absently. He didn't reply. "Any one of them would be more than willing to gut me and take the throne, if he had his plans made well enough. My advantages are that I took out so many so quickly, the survivors see themselves in position to move up even if they don't make a play for the throne, and no one left alive is ready to make such a move – yet." She stopped, turning to him.

"But I have to get them on my side. Get them to support me. How?"

"If I may be so bold, Empress…"

She laughed. "'If you may be so bold'? Yesterday you _raped_me. How much _bolder_ do you intend to _get_?"

"The way to ensure loyalty is to find out what they want and giving them part of it."

"Part of it?"

"You never give them everything. Give them half, more than half. Keep them hoping for more."

"These people have virtually everything there is to have. What can I offer them besides peace and a productive Empire?"

"Maybe that's all they need."

"But can I trust them not to put a knife between my ribs?"

"Ultimately; no. The more they get, the more they'll crave. That's the downside of giving them a bit at a time. Sometime, maybe soon, they will want to control the dole."

"Then tell me; what can I do?"

"You're looking for someone you can trust, but those people are rare. You can buy people, coerce them, threaten them. Most people approach every situation from the direction of lack of trust, expecting betrayal. And in your position, as much as you want to start out with a measure of trust, it's hard to accomplish."

"Who do you trust?" she asked. He knew she didn't mean she was seeking his answer, but her own.

"I'm afraid there's no longer anyone on Earth you can trust. Terrans no longer see trust first. We see betrayal and disloyalty and work to find ways to counter it. Even if you were to change, no one else will."

x

She pressed her lips together, trying to bite back her feelings. It was so very hard, and she couldn't keep a note of frustration from seeping through. "I'm trying to find a new way. The Empire cannot keep going as it is; dominating and controlling a galaxy. It cannot act as though no one else matters except as slaves to do our will. It does not _work_. The Empire is dying, and will continue to die so long as humanity believes that it can control every other race in existence.

"I have to change that. I have to find a way of bringing the galaxy together. I have to find a way of ensuring loyalty without floggings, without the Booth. I have to…" she shook her head. "I have to _recreate_ the Empire."

"An ancient philosopher once observed 'Give me a fulcrum and a long enough rod and I can move the Earth'."

She looked up at him, and her smile was bitter and sad. "How long a rod will I need?"

He had no answer. She observed him, considering him closely. She considered him more closely than she had in a long while.

"You're different. You're not like I'm used to."

"How so?"

"You're …' she hunted for a word. "Thoughtful."

"Do you see anyone else here? We all play a role. Right now, my role is your Chief Bodyguard."

"Do you have any ambitions?"

"We all have ambitions. Mine is not to die."

She couldn't help but smile. "Do you think much about death?"

"Not overmuch. Since I became a M.A.C.O., it's so much a part of my life there's no point in worrying about it. Those that do, hesitate. Those that hesitate, well, they're not around anymore. Since I became Captain Forrest's bodyguard, then Captain Archer's, now yours, there's always the chance that the next intersection, the next turbolift, the next doorway will be my last."

She thought about this, and didn't relish the prospect.

"If you could pick your end, what would it be?"

"At the age of 90, to be shot in her bed by a young woman's jealous husband."

She laughed. "I'll try to see if I can arrange that."

She thought for a long moment. She had been seeking someone upon whose council she could depend. Now she realized that perhaps she had been looking too hard in fields too far away. Maybe there was more to this man than she'd originally considered.


	8. Et tu, Brute?

Chapter Eight

Et tu, Brute?

Assistant Chief Engineer Mary Sherman, her uniform updated with a solid band and a broken band of gold at her wrists, the mark of a Lieutenant Commander, looks around the empty Engineering Section. The open space is huge compared to the tightly packed Engine Room of 'Enterprise', the tremendous warp engines visible through the grate at the far end of the room are staggering in their dimensions. For now they are quiet, but when the ship was traveling at warp they thrummed with such power that the entire bay resonated with the heartbeat.

Comparatively puny thrusters now held the ship in orbit. Even the Impulse engines were shut down, but had to be ready for engagement in a moment's notice. The warp engines are ready to catapult them to unimaginable speeds as soon as they clear the system, putting enough distance between themselves and Earth's sun.

For the moment all is quiet. She is alone. She touches a switch on the two story high panel before her. "Engineering to Commander Tucker." Her voice echoes hollowly in the huge room. She waits a half-second while the computer, using the ship's internal sensors, relays her call to Tucker's location. The pause wouldn't have been noticeable to anyone but an Engineer.

"Tucker here." His voice – how she hates that almost mocking voice as much as she does the brutal man who uses it – comes from the speaker. Clenching her fist, she takes a deep breath, steeling herself.

"There's a problem in Engineering."

"I'm coming."

Mary Sherman's stomach clenches. It had been one of the last things he had said to her last night, a near shout of triumph as she lay trapped under him, crying, screaming, writhing in agony as he brutalized her, as he _raped_ her. "I'll be waiting," she says tightly, hand clutching the pommel of the dagger securely strapped to her thigh.

x

Less than five minutes later the red doors far across the room to slide open. Tucker, clad in the black and red new uniform of the Empire, the several medals from his former uniform nearly obscuring the gold and black emblem of this ship, strides into the room. He is the only, or perhaps the first, one to transfer his old uniform's medals onto this one. In her view, it does not bode well.

She crosses to the dilithium chamber to await him. When he stops next to her, the first thing he wants to know is "Where is everybody?"

There are seven crewmen assigned to this shift, but she is alone. "I sent them out to track down the problem, but they're not going to find it."

"Yeah? Well, where is it?"

"Here." Her hand flashed out, knocked the phaser attached to his waist from its securement. The weapon clattered along the deck back toward the door as she danced out of reach, her dagger already in her hand, held at ready against him. Her body is slightly crouched, weight resting on the balls of her feet, ready to move quickly.

He turned to her, not unduly worried by her move. "Well, well; give a girl an inch – or should I say nine?"

"You flatter yourself."

He drew his own blade, eased into a knife-fighter's stance, but there was a casual insolence about it. He knew her skill in a knife fight, or should he say lack of it? This was going to be fun. And when he was done teaching her a lesson, the _real_ education would begin. "I'd figured one day you would try for my job. I just didn't think it would be after just a few hours."

"That's _not_ what this is about."

x

A movement to his right drew his attention, but he moved only his eyes, not turning his head to see what had changed. From between two of the tremendous control banks stepped M.A.C.O. Corporal Andrea Carstairs, also carrying a dagger rather than the ubiquitous phase rifle he's used to seeing in her hands. From the next junction of control stations stepped Private Mary Tigat, her black hair held back from her face and a gleaming dagger in her own hand. They advanced slowly, two gray clad lionesses stalking their prey.

From a small control room beside the main door stepped Geologist Jennifer Farber in her Imperial midriff uniform, the lithe black woman joined by Science Officer Lt. Tina Parker, the latter light blue uniform bearing the interlaced circles of the Sciences Division. To his left, high above their heads, Tucker saw movement and watched Chief of Life Sciences Lt. Cdr. Sarah Zetan and Weapons Specialist Lt. Amanda Michaels step from opposite directions to converge at the top of the wide ladder; each of them boosting their feet upon the bars and sliding down to land on their feet. Both wore the blue and red uniforms of the new Fleet.

Most of these had been Secondary or Tertiary Officers, now advanced due to the deaths of their Seniors in the destruction of 'Enterprise'.

All seven women surround Tucker. All have daggers out and ready to use the gleaming blades. Every one of them is from 'Enterprise'. He's known them for years; and they all have one particular thing in common. Each of them had, at various times, been the recipient of his 'attention'.

x

"So, it's come down to this," he says in a mocking tone, moving away from the waist high chamber beside him, trying to find a defensible position without allowing them to see how outnumbered he recognizes himself to be.

"Things were bad enough with you just as Chief Engineer," Sarah Zetan says, moving in closer. The women tighten their circle about him.

"We never could depend upon Forrest, and certainly not Archer," Farber agrees, the dark woman trying to keep down her anger.

x

Tucker flashes back to a confrontation he had had with Forrest some time ago, when the Captain had ordered him to report to his Ready Room prior to the cleansing action on Dartmuth Station: 'Commander, I am concerned having an Officer whose preferred method of sexual expression is rape.' 'What do you care?' 'I don't. Your recreational preferences are up to you. I don't give a damn about the slaves, and any Terran woman who cannot handle herself deserves whatever she gets.'

Nothing had come of that issue, as he had remarked to Reed some time later. 'It feels good to have a woman who doesn't give me any trouble, who knows her place and how to stay there. And I love it when a woman _begs_.'

x

"With you as First Officer, there's no one who can stop you," Amanda Michaels charges furiously. "And when the Empress is gone, and you become Captain, no one on this ship will be safe."

'She's right about that,' he thinks. With everyone out of his way, there's no one to oppose his choice of recreation. He won't even have to use force. Disobeying the orders of a Commanding Officer carries only one punishment, and they know it.

He'd told Archer when the man had revealed his plans for mutiny to him: 'A man who cannot take, cannot _conquer_ what he wants, is not a man. And when you come down to it, women are weak. For all the work they may do and the so-called 'rank' they may hold in the Empire, they have only one _real_ purpose. They may try to deny it, but women _need_ to be conquered more than they need to breathe.'

x

Attentive as he is, he can't watch all sides at once. Mary Sherman takes a step forward, he turns to meet her and he feels piercing pain in his lower back. He slashes back, but hits nothing. He turns just in time to see Mary Tigat move back into position, and from each side Jennifer Farber and Tina Parker step in. He evades Farber's blade, but not Parker's, which stabs deep into his ribs.

He can't defend himself on seven sides, and as he turns in one direction an attack comes from another. Fast as he is, he can't stop Zetan from burying her blade between his shoulder blades, nor stop Carstairs from shoving her dagger into his stomach.

They come two at a time, always from undefended angles, to stab and withdraw as his pain increases and he feels his blood soak through his shirt and down into his pants. Blood drips to the floor, makes the deck slick as he tries to evade the women, to return killing blows, but they're always out of reach. He staggers, unable to keep on his feet as one woman after another lunges in, buries her blade into him and dances away before he can retaliate.

He can't help but reflect that the last knife fight he had been in was against the Auran slave Tia Anlor, how he had left her thoroughly pierced body soaking in a pool of golden blood. Now he realizes there's a terrible irony that he may join her.

He thinks he might have been hit twenty stabs when they stop, no longer attacking. There's no need to. Lightheaded and dizzy, he knows he's mortally wounded. He turns to face, as the others surround him still, the woman who had brought him into this ambush.

Sherman. Her red uniform is stained with splotches of his blood. Staggering, half dead, barely able to keep on his feet, he falls forward and she catches him against her.

He lies leaning against her body, feeling the blood gushing out of him onto her, and forces himself to look up, to focus on her, to look into the eyes of the woman he had promoted to his Assistant just hours ago.

She makes no effort to push him away. He knows she wants him to see her, and to know she will be the last sight he will ever see. His pain filled eyes lock on hers as he gasps: "Et tu, Brute?"

x

With all her hate she stabs him, thrusts up into his body, pierces his heart as he utters one last sharp exclamation and she feels the gush of blood cover her. She watches the light of life fade from his eyes. With a long sigh, his body slides down hers to fall off her legs, turns about as he collapses onto his back beside her.

Mary Sherman looks down her scarlet uniform, the material drenched in red blood, the gory trail covers her bare legs. As she stares at Tucker's still body his blood, so saturating her uniform that the material cannot contain it, drips onto her boots and the deck.

x

The door slides open and six M.A.C.O.s run in, spreading ranks and covering the women with their phase rifles, but they do not fire. A moment later Hoshi Sato, even outdistancing her Personal Bodyguard Travis Mayweather, enters and advances to the front of the soldiers. Her long white dress is a sharp contrast to the deep gray uniforms or the red and black of the Federation.

She looks at the tableau before her, speechless with fury. She'd been alerted by Ann Anderson, just after her talk with the Minister of Finance and while preparing for her conference with the Minister of Security, that something was happening in Engineering. But for all her efforts, the soldiers she had sent ahead of her by scant seconds hadn't arrived in time.

Nor had she.

She looks at the seven bloody women, clothed in a hodgepodge of red, light blue, dark blue midriff and dark gray uniforms. She focuses upon Assistant Chief Engineer Sherman, promoted just last night, her new red uniform drenched in blood that drips from her microskirt onto her boots and to the deck where she stands beside the still body of Charles Tucker.

Hoshi stalks forward, heedless of the dripping knives still in the hands of the women. The M.A.C.O.s give the women their messages with their rifles, and one by one the blades drop to the deck, the ring of refined steel loud in the silence. Every time a dagger drops, it rains tiny splashes of blood.

As Hoshi reaches her, Mary does not release her blade until six rifles and one hand phaser are aimed at her head. She drops the blade beside the body of her former Chief.

x

Hoshi stares at the body of Charles Tucker, her rage building by the second. When she finally meets the eyes of the woman before her, her fury is volcanic. "_Why_?" She whispers it so tightly that it hurts, but she cannot raise her voice over the strangling wrath.

"He raped each of us – many times. He raped me just last _night_. As Chief Engineer he got away with it; Captain Forrest did nothing to stop him, nor did Archer. As Captain, he would have been uncontrollable."

x

Hoshi's anger mounts until she can barely breathe. She clutches the hilt of her own dagger tightly, tighter, so tightly the pommel hurts her hand and still she clutches it tighter.

She looks from the blood drenched Assistant Chief Engineer to the other women, M.A.C.O.s Corporal Andrea Carstairs and Private Mary Tigat, Imperial Geologist Jennifer Farber, light blue uniformed Science Officer Tina Parker and Chief of Life Sciences Sarah Zetan and red uniformed Weapons Specialist Amanda Michaels; all of 'Enterprise', and the pain in her tight grip grows. She needs this pain, because she's fighting the urge to draw the blade and slaughter them _all_.

But she cannot. Each woman is skilled in her field; too skilled to be lost. Most had been advanced to their positions following the losses in the destruction of 'Enterprise'. She longs to slit each of their throats, but she can't do without them.

x

The body of her friend lies at her feet. She'd seduced him, made love to him numerous times. He'd never tried to rape her; she had been the Captain's Woman and it would have been suicide; but she had always been a very willing, if secret, companion. True, she had done it to cement her own position, and to secure her future, just as she had with the Captain, the First Officer, the Tactical Officer, the Captain's Chief Bodyguard….

She looks at the ship's new Chief Engineer, seeing only the blood of her friend. She would gladly spill this woman's blood all over this deck, to mingle with her friend's, if it could help. If she didn't _need_ her.

And the women hadn't acted outside Imperial Law. By law and tradition, unless Hoshi found a better candidate, _Sherman _was the new Chief Engineer. She was also the last surviving Engineer of 'Enterprise'; there was no one else to put in her place but someone from 'Avenger', or 'Vindicator', or from some other ship, or someone of Minister Margan's choosing….

Throat so tight she can't say the words, Hoshi turns and stalks away, leaving the body of her friend and his murderers. She will let her silence speak for her appointment of the murderer to her victim's post.

When she reaches the phalanx of M.A.C.O.s she pauses, but it takes several moments to force a whisper through her tight throat. "Bring his body to Sick Bay," she whispers to no one and everyone, blinking her stinging eyes. "But treat it with respect."

She leads Mayweather out the sliding door, not waiting for or hearing a reply.

x

Hoshi walks quickly, her white high heeled shoes clicking rapidly on the deck plates as Mayweather strives to keep up. She walks blindly, not caring where she's going; just that it is away. He keeps a step behind her at all times, alert for danger as she strides so fast her white dress flutters behind her.

Suddenly she veers off toward a door, not caring which one, not even slowing down as it senses her and opens barely in time. She strides in, the lights coming on about her. She stalks into the small laboratory, not even seeing it as Travis stops just inside the doorway, letting the portal hiss shut behind him.

She stands still, hands clenched, body trembling with increasing violence.

"Your Majesty?" Travis attempts cautiously.

She draws a deep breath and her long, piercing shriek is deafening.


	9. when there is no one left?

Chapter Nine

"…when there is no one left?"

Hoshi Sato, her throat raw and stinging from screaming, arrived in Sick Bay moments after several M.A.C.O.s had brought in the body of Charles Tucker and laid him upon a diagnostic bed. The panel over the bed remained dark. As Hoshi approached the body, the M.A.C.O.s didn't need the direction of their Chief. The look on the woman's face was enough. They departed without delay.

Travis remained near the door, not intruding on her grief. Hoshi stood next to the bed, next to the bloody body of her friend. There were so many wounds in his chest, in his back and sides, that the red shirt he wore was soaked in blood, which now dripped from the bed onto the deck. She could see, peripherally, the outraged expression on Phlox's face as he looked at the trail of blood ranging from the door to the biobed, but she didn't give a _damn_ about the dark Denobulan.

She reached out and took Tucker's bloody hand. 'It's so cool. It's growing cold.' All she could see, as she looked down at the body of her friend, was the blood.

Phlox stepped over to the other side of the bed. She stared for a long time at Tucker's face, seeing nothing else, caring about nothing else.

"You said you and Reed could recreate the Agony Booth," she said distantly, not looking up from Tucker. Her voice was as dead as her friend.

"Yes."

"Can you do it alone?"

"With sufficient technical help. I've been working on the details. I remember most of the systems; we have even better ones here. The technique is not complicated; neural fields to stimulate the nerve centers are pretty common techniques. Normally it is used for testing the neural pathways in injured-."

She looked up suddenly, a terrible expression on her face. "_Shut up_! Can you _do_ it?"

"Yes." He was not going to go off on another tangent.

"How soon?"

"A day."

"Get started. It doesn't have to be pretty, or even particularly efficient. You can use a torpedo casing for all I care. It just has to work."

"No need to go so low tech. I have a biological isolation chamber similar to the one we used on 'Enterprise'." Phlox said nothing about the fact that the last time he had seen her she had been adamant that the Agony Booth would never again disgrace an Imperial vessel.

Hoshi didn't need a reminder. She knew all too well her feelings about that triply damned Booth. She had _sworn_ it would never be built, that it was nothing but an _abomination_; that it brought out the _worst_ in Terrans.

And now her friend was dead.

x

"It would help if I have a test subject to use in calibrating the system."

"Don't worry, you will," she said with terrible resolve, looking down at the body of her friend, letting go of his cold hand which had cooled all unnoticed while she was holding it. She lowered it to his side. "When it's even partially working I have your first real subject. Chief Engineer Sherman is going to spend a _week_ in the thing!"

"I see."

"Oh, and don't install it here, or even in a closed room. I want it _seen_. Even when it's not in use I want people to know about it; to think about it."

"Where would you suggest?"

Hoshi thought about it. Where indeed? "Put it in the Mess Hall."

"That should assist in maintaining the crew's diets."

"_Just get it working, Doctor_."

Turning away, she stalked toward the door, but his next words stopped her dead. "Have you thought about who you are going to select for Command now?"

x

Her blood had been running hot, but suddenly it chilled, went frigid in her veins. Who indeed?

Maximilian Forrest, the only one she had considered truly qualified for the post, had died a hero's death fighting to buy time for the surviving crew, including herself, to get to the escape pods during the Tholian assault that had doomed 'Enterprise'.

Jonathan Archer had once had the qualities needed for Command, but years of frustrated ambition had pushed his growing megalomania into full blown madness, to the point that he'd had to be put down for the sake of everyone around him.

The Vulcan bitch T'Pol, though she had possessed a brilliant scientific mind, had betrayed them numerous times until she'd met a traitor's end.

Charles Tucker, for all his skill in Engineering, would not have lasted long in Command. He could never see the result of his actions. She had already known this and hadn't considered him for Captain. His appetites too often outstripped his judgment, and he had too many enemies. His appetites had made him too feared among his own crew. If the women hadn't butchered him, eventually someone would have. No matter how much that realization hurt, she couldn't deny it. The number of Tucker's days, despite her feelings for him, had been few.

Malcolm Reed, even if he recovered from his injuries, would never be fit for Command. For all his love of 'discipline'; he had little self-discipline. He was a rogue; a loose cannon who could not be depended upon to follow orders. His term in the center seat of the most powerful Starship in existence would have been a disaster.

Travis Mayweather, for all his skill in piloting and elsewhere, was destined for the Imperial Palace, as was Phlox.

Forrest, Archer, T'Pol, Tucker, Reed … she tried to think of another name but could not. There had been too many casualties in the final moments of 'Enterprise'.

Galling as it was, the next Commander of 'Defiant' would not hail from 'Enterprise'.

xx

She left the Sick Bay, leaving Phlox's inquiry unanswered. She was unable to stand one more second in that facility, and had just started down the corridor toward the turbolift when there was a loud whistle that ascended up the scale and down again. "Bridge to Empress Sato." She stopped walking and took a deep breath, letting it out with a sharp sigh that dropped her shoulders heavily.

"Are they always going to be able to find me?"

Not certain if he had been addressed or not, Travis answered her. "Yes."

She looked over her shoulder at him. "What an eternal joy you are." She stepped over to the offending wall panel, pushed the white button. "Yes?"

"Minister of Security Donnelson is still waiting in the Briefing Room," Grace Winters reminded her.

"So why are you bothering _me_?" she muttered under her breath. If Winters heard her, she gave no indication. "Tell him I'll be there shortly. And inform the crew, if they don't know it already, that the First Officer is …." She couldn't say it.

A few seconds later she switched off the intercom. She leaned against the wall, feeling utterly dejected.

Travis, conscious of the image the Empress presented, stepped up and put his arm around her shoulders, guiding her to the closest door, which opened to admit them. It was a crew quarters; whether vacant or assigned they had no idea. He guided her to the bunk and they sat down together on its edge.

He could finally see her face, on the same level as they were, and it was filled with sadness and tears that wouldn't come. "I just… I just…." She felt too miserable to say it. She was more than tired, worse than overwhelmed. Everything about the last few days, ever since Jonathan Archer had embarked upon his mad scheme for power and glory, was crashing down upon her. It was too much. Too much death, too much destruction, too much change and madness and grief.

That had to be why Tucker's death hit her so hard. True, they were friends, but she was normally stronger than this. She had always rolled well enough with the punches that a life of serving the Empire inflicted upon one. But so much death, so much destruction, so much….

"I – I can't … I can't …" She couldn't even finish.

Travis reached out and touched her chin, gently urging her to turn toward him. When she did, his lips were upon hers, warm and comforting, but… "No." She pulled away. He came an inch closer and she remembered the last time she'd told him 'no'.

"No," she said definitely. "I really mean it. _No_." He drew back, giving her space. "Not even that. I know you're trying to help, and I'm grateful, and normally it would help, but not this time. Not…."

She sighed deeply, seeming to collapse into herself. "I've got to get to that meeting."


	10. An Offer They Can't Refuse

Chapter Ten

An offer they can't refuse…

The 'interviews' with her Ministers had each gone as she had predicted. The men had run the range from cautious reservation to even more cautious support, but not one of them was going to dare break with his Empress; not yet. Hoshi was by unsurprised. She knew that while she was outlining startling changes to Imperial Policy, she was dealing with people who had pledged their lives to the service of the Empire and its Supreme Leader, regardless of name or sex. She had no doubt about their loyalty – to the Empire if not to her. Their loyalty could be enforced through any number of means, but they were loyal – to the Empire if not to her.

But for the next stage of her plan, she would deal with people who were decidedly not loyal to the Empire, whose loyalty could not be bought or imposed or enforced. In fact, they were engaged in a life or death struggle against that Empire – and they were winning.

This was the worst crisis the Empire had experienced in its centuries-long history.

This crisis, Jonathan Archer had been correct in saying, was the result of the poor planning of the old regime. Presuming all other species to be 'sub-human' and therefore of little consequence other than as slaves, they had ignored potential and had stolen resources until the point was reached when these races had collectively cried 'enough'. Several of them had taken up arms against the Empire, and when it became clear that the Imperial forces were not the ultimate power in the universe, that they could be defeated, more and more races rose up in rebellion. Andorians, Vulcans, Orions, Tellarites, Bolians, Manarkians, Cardassians, more and more every month until the initial Terran defeats became the norm of the war and the Empire stood on the brink of annihilation.

But that was before the 'Defiant's appearance on the field. Suddenly, if briefly, the tide had turned. Suddenly the Empire was again the power in the Galaxy – at least as far as this one ship was concerned.

But though plans were already being drafted for a new Fleet based upon this stupendously powerful and advanced ship, it was not enough to win a war.

For now, the Rebels were pausing, even as the Terran Fleet had initially done. They were watching this unknown force, trying to decide, collectively, their next move; even while listening carefully to everything that went on between this ship and the planet it orbited.

For Hoshi was firmly convinced there were plenty of spies on Earth. The recent setbacks the Empire had suffered had been impossible without an established spy network. The only thing she could do was to act before the Rebels were ready to move.

Her move had to be staggering, well considered and swift – a powerful thrust that would disrupt and overwhelm all opposition. It had to be surprising, unsettling, stunning, something that would restore the Empire to its former glory.

Hoshi was sure she had the plan. She hoped she could make it work.

x

Seated in her Command Chair, wearing a jade dress that was an even more ornate version of the red Dragon gown she had worn earlier, Hoshi took a deep, settling breath. Everyone on the bridge watched her intently. She tried to appear calm, collected, totally in control, but inside her stomach was churning. This was the most important transmission of her reign. It would either signal the beginning of the Empire's long sought march toward lost glory, or ensure that she would never live to see her throne. Ermine robes or an assassin's beam; those were her futures, with one or the other to be chosen now.

"Open communications."

Winters' response preceded the musical tone by only a second. Hoshi watched her own image appear on the viewscreen before her. The image was focused strictly upon her; none of the background visible. Thus she could judge her presentation.

x

"This is Empress Hoshi Sato speaking from the Imperial Flagship 'Defiant' to those worlds currently engaged in war against us.

"For several months we have each waged a costly war. Losses of life and resources on both sides have long ago surpassed tolerable limits.

"The Empire is now in possession of an invincible Starship from the distant future, with armaments and resources so surpassing anything in existence that, alone, it could win this war. Plans for the construction of a Fleet of similar ships are already under way.

"_However_," she stressed heavily, "it is not the desire of this Empire which _I_ now lead to continue to pursue a course of destruction. While we could annihilate the forces arrayed against us, we no longer wish to do so. Life and resources are better deployed in more constructive endeavors.

"Under the regime of Robert MacNamara, you had many grievances which have led you to rebel against us, causing him to raise arms against you, your families and your worlds.

"Those grievances I recognize as being valid. There were many reasons for you to go to war, but they no longer exist. They died with the former Emperor.

"_I_ am willing to not only listen to your grievances, but to correct them. I offer the opportunity for each race to meet with me – personally – to correct the injustices that have led to this war.

"I will meet, personally, with _one_ Representative of each world, who must be empowered to make binding commitments for his or her planet. We will arrange for _one_ ship from each world, in turn, to have safe passage to and from Earth, and for that Representative to sign a binding Agreement between the Empire and yourself.

"As a gesture of good faith, I order all our ships and military forces to stand down and adopt a defensive posture. No aggressive action is to be taken unless we are attacked.

"A single vessel from each world may, in turn and with prior arrangement, approach Earth under flag of truce to conclude an Agreement.

"I, Empress Hoshi Sato, await your reply."

x

At that pre-arranged signal, the channel was closed. Appearing on the screen was the personal emblem of the Ruler of the Empire, a supernova surmounted by the motto: 'Ex Cathedra'; meaning 'From the Throne'.

Hoshi leaned her head back, and a few moments later turned to her left, seeing Travis Mayweather standing beside her. "So, either I'll be the savior of the Empire, or my head will be on a chopping block."

"Maybe both," he pointed out. She lifted her head, looking more directly at him.

"'What an eternal joy you are'," she repeated.

x

Hoshi knew that the next move was up to those races out there. Though they formed a coalition that had military might behind them, they were a loose association, or more accurately a 'hodgepodge', when it came to politics. They had no unifying bond other than their hatred for, and desire to secede from, the Empire. Thus, if the Empire were to fall, they could not prevent anarchy from erupting.

She was going to offer them a better way, and she imagined the consternation that seared through their ranks as each planet received her subspace signal.

That they would think it was the last gasp of a losing power she had no doubt. Things had been going badly for the Empire for weeks, and the rebels had no reason to doubt this trend would continue. Some of them, she was sure, were confident of inevitable victory.

But if it was an 'inevitable victory', it would be bought at the cost of a multitude of lives and of immense resources. The Empire was powerful, and had the majority of the worlds of the known galaxy under its thumb. While there was a _chance_ that the Rebels actually could win – a belief that would make them cocky in the upcoming negotiations – it was a victory that would be bought at grave price.

The Empire under MacNamara might have laid waste to planets, and annihilated whole populations, exterminating entire species. The Empire Sato commanded _could_ do so; even with a single 'Defiant' class Starship.

So the question, reduced to its simplest terms, was this: Would the Rebels continue to fight a long war at massive cost of life, or would they talk?

And if some talked, how many had to be brought over to the Empire before the backbone of resistance collapsed and all gave way?


	11. In Hell

Chapter Eleven

In Hell

On the next morning Hoshi, wearing a scarlet, ankle-length dress that hugged and flattered her figure, and matching high heeled slippers, stepped onto the bridge behind her Chief Bodyguard to receive the salutes of her officers. Before she could step down to her Command Chair, however, her attention was caught by Grace Winters, who stood at her station robed in apprehension. "Your Majesty, we have just received a communication from Minister of Arms Margan. He told us that he has selected the first twenty crewmen for your approval, including a new First Officer."

Hoshi glared at the standing officer. This was not welcome news. Her red tinted eye-shadow, which matched her dress, gave her eyes the appearance of fire, but her tone was cold as death. "I don't remember ordering you to inform anyone off the 'Defiant' that this ship needs a new First Officer."

Grace Winters backed away a step. "I didn't," she protested. "There have been no outside communications other than those you ordered."

Hoshi looked across the bridge to the Tactical Sensors station beyond the Science consoles. Lt. Ann Anderson felt the blood drain from her face, but she stood her ground. "No, your Worship. Not from me."

Hoshi looked about the bridge at the other officers standing at their posts, but she already knew that no message could have gone out without either of these women knowing about it. And while she could not be one hundred percent sure of their loyalty, she could be sure that they wanted to live.

x

That left Margan. Was the man suddenly so confident that he could be making assignments of, not even recommendations about, Senior Officers; even 'knowing' this ship already had a First Officer? It was something to consider.

"Well then, who does our illustrious Minister of Arms recommend for the job?"

"A Commander Reed, based at Starfleet Headquarters, former X.O. of the 'Emperor's Fist'."

"Reed?" she inquired with heavy irony. "Did you happen to mention that this ship already has a 'Reed'?"

"No, your Excellency. I didn't think that was my place."

Hoshi glanced about the bridge, seeing her officers still at attention; as if uncertain they could reseat themselves before she assumed the center chair. They were being cautious with the new Command, particularly when she was in foul humor. With a gesture she directed them to their seats. She decided she should not only establish better rules of protocol but also have better control over displaying her thoughts. There had been so much chaos, and she knew she was slipping.

But right now, there was a more immediate, if unexpected, concern; the man who would be First Officer, and the one who had sent him.

Hoshi thought hard about this unexpected development. Perhaps she should see it through, find out how it played. If all went well, maybe a 'Reed' would ultimately command this ship; even if it was not the man she had anticipated. If it did not, well, Margan already knew the penalty for his failure.

x

The 'Emperor's Fist' was a good ship; the nominal Flagship of the former Regime before its Captain had fallen out of favor; and that plum title, and all the perks it carried, had been transferred to 'Enterprise'. But it was a good ship nonetheless.

Did its former X.O. have ambitions of being in line to command a 'Flagship' again? It was something to consider when she met the man. Ambition was to be admired - but unbridled ambition could have regrettable consequences, either for himself or those around him.

"Very well," Hoshi decided. "I don't have time to interview twenty people. Tell Gebrowski to do it and make assignments accordingly. They're to use one of the Cargo transporters. Have a squad of M.A.C.O.s meet him there. But have this Commander Reed beam up to Transporter Room One. This man I want to meet personally. Tell him and TR1 to make it twenty minutes."

"Yes, your Highness."

x

When she turned back to enter the Turbolift, Mayweather waited until the car was moving down before reaching back under his red shirt and pulling the communicator, only slightly larger and more advanced than the Imperial model, from its attachment at his belt. He spoke briefly into the unit, ordering two M.A.C.O. soldiers to rendezvous with them in Transporter Room One. He put the device back behind him and again held his phaser rifle in both hands.

Much more powerful than the former pulse rifles, this advanced weapon could blow a hole in a bulkhead with one brief discharge, or atomize any target that could stand against a lesser weapon. What a pulse rifle could punch a hole in, this weapon could obliterate with the use of far less power. Where the Type Two phaser was essentially a Type One mounted upon a more powerful base, this was a Type Two mounted upon a supremely powerful energy source.

Hoshi doubted that anyone, confronted by a Type Three phaser, offered very many arguments.

x

Hoshi's pace was a slow walk. They were close to the Transporter Room, but she was more interested at the moment in Travis' insights than she was in his gun. "So, is Margan following my orders, or trying to put his people onto my ship?"

"Your orders _were_ specific; the best men he knew. And his incentive to choose loyal men was a good one."

"Maybe so. But I asked for three hundred people. They are going to form the majority of my crew."

"Perhaps finding them from one source is not the best strategy," he told her. "I've found everyone I have ever served with to be loyal – but to so many different things and people. What you told me was true; the leaders of the Empire are loyal to the Emperor – or Empress – if he or she does what is claimed he or she can do. Of course, we have not had an Empress in a very long time." He stopped, compelling her to do so as well.

"But you are the first ever to rule from a distance. Granted, your seat of power is presently here, but every other Emperor has occupied the Palace almost immediately. Is it wise to rule from so far away?"

She considered his words carefully. "Perhaps not. I don't want to give anyone the impression that I'm afraid, but I still don't relish the thought of being surrounded by my illustrious Ministers, let alone all the sycophants I'll meet. It's going to seem like they're crawling out of the woodwork within hours of my arrival. I'm not ready for that. Not yet." She looked deeply into the eyes of the taller man, considering. "What do you have in mind?"

"In your benevolent concern for the safety and well-being of so valuable a group of men as your Imperial Ministers, I can send down a squad of men I trust to take over as their Personal Guards. Their orders will be to keep your Ministers safe at all costs. Of course, that will mean dismissing the present ranks, as our men would be the Ministers' constant companions. They can hardly refuse so generous an action to preserve their safety; especially since they're not secretly conspiring against you," he finished with an ironic smile.

"I like it. What else?"

"I can send Wilson down to Starfleet Academy. His assignment will be to skim the top ranks of 3rd year Cadets based purely upon Academic standing, about 150 or so. We need the best minds aboard this ship, and these men and women will not have established any kind of loyalties outside of their Imperial Conditioning. They'll be brought aboard as fast as they can be selected, long before anyone knows what's happening or can reach any of them. They'll be young, smart, adaptable and quite pleased to be serving - and enjoying the perks that come from serving - on the Imperial Flagship.

"Most of them could never have hoped so soon for plum assignments; that takes Sponsorship they don't have and cannot as yet have established. Chances are their 'Sponsors', if any, were destroyed with the Admiralty building.

"We needn't worry about their completing their courses; those courses won't have prepared them for the 'Defiant'. But they'll be a crew who will be loyal to the Empress, and pleased to show it by their work."

Hoshi was very happy she'd kept this man close to her. "Make it so."

x

Hoshi waited in the transporter room with Mayweather and two other M.A.C.O. bodyguards, the latter two having their phaser rifles trained on the pad where the officer would materialize.

"Bridge to Transporter Room One," the intercom spoke with Grace Winters' voice.

"Go ahead," the technician directed at Hoshi's nod.

"Lt. Wilson has beamed down from Transporter Room 2 to Starfleet Academy, your squad of M.A.C.O.s has been deployed at the Palace as Personal Guards to protect your Ministers and Commander Reed is ready to beam aboard."

Hoshi was gratified, and quite impressed, at the speed at which 'her' orders had been followed. She signaled the transporter operator to energize the systems, and on the platform a single figure started to materialize in a column of scintillating energy.

She was mildly surprised at the silhouette that formed in the energy field.

x

A woman wearing the two piece Imperial uniform of a Starfleet Commander; the three silver bars with diamond cluster on the epaulets on her shoulders gleaming in the light, and several highly distinguished medals adorning the left side of her uniform, appeared and saluted. She wisely used the sharp snap of closed fist above her left breast and then the open hand held out and downward slightly above shoulder level. She held the salute until Hoshi acknowledged it. "Your Supremacy, request permission to come aboard," she addressed her Empress formally.

"Granted, Commander," Hoshi acknowledged as formally, hiding her surprise. This woman was definitely not what she had expected. But, she reflected, no one had ever said 'Commander Reed' was a man. She had just assumed it.

She resolved to be less presumptuous in the future.

x

The woman was tall, with long chestnut hair and brown eyes. As she descended from the elevated platform, she carried herself with strict military bearing. She stepped up to Hoshi, blatantly ignoring the phase rifles trained upon her, disdainful of their implied threat. She held the PADD she carried out to the Empress. "My Orders, your Majesty." She held herself at stiff Attention, eyes front.

She was in her late 30's, with trim and strong physique. Her uniform was immaculate, her medals gleaming, the Imperial patch on her right sleeve and the Starfleet Command insignia on her left, a refulgent sun surrounded by the motto in ancient Latin 'Carpe Infinitum'; 'Seize Everything', seemed equally new. She stood about four inches taller than Hoshi.

She clearly took particular care in her appearance. Of course, no woman dared 'let herself go', considering the fashion of Imperial uniforms. Though she was well formed, there seemed to be no softness about this woman.

"And they are?" Hoshi asked, accepting the PADD but not even glancing at what was displayed upon it. She didn't take her eyes off the newcomer.

"I am ordered to report for assignment as First Officer of the 'Defiant'."

Hoshi allowed a tiny smile, glad to see early on just how far Margan was willing to go. "That has yet to be approved, Commander. All top level appointments to my Flagship go through me and no one else."

"Understood; your Majesty," Reed replied crisply, unfazed, eyes never leaving that foreward lock.

Hoshi was becoming a bit uncomfortable with the woman's erect posture and her even more erect manner. "At ease; Commander."

"Thank you, your Majesty." The woman's definition of 'at ease' was clearly not very generous. It was textbook perfect. Ramrod straight, it was the most 'at attention' 'at ease' that Hoshi had seen in years. But at least now she looked at her Empress.

Hoshi scanned the PADD peripherally, taking it in while still keeping her eyes on Reed. The woman was not nervous. She was hoping for the posting she had been promised, but was equally prepared to be told to 'get on the pad and get lost'.

Hoshi didn't scan the PADD for long before finding something she didn't like. "I was expecting a Commander _Reed_." At her sharp tone, Mayweather raised his phaser so all weapons converged upon the woman.

The newcomer displayed no fear at all while standing at the convergence of three deadly energy weapons. "Your Supremacy, 'Reed' _was_ my name at one time, but I am divorced. Minister Margan is a traditionalist and does not _recognize_ divorce." Her tone spoke clearly of her distain for 'traditionalists'.

"He persists upon calling me by my wedded name, though it has been many years since I've used it. My _name_ is Patricia McCabe."

x

Hoshi looked the woman over thoroughly. She could detect no lie in her. "To whom were you married?"

"M.A.C.O. Private Malcolm Reed, your Highness," she reported crisply.

"And did you know that _Major_ Malcolm Reed is the Tactical Officer of this ship?"

She didn't need McCabe's words; the sudden sharp increase in the stiffness in her manner and the look in her eyes as she stared straight ahead again were enough. "No, I did not, your Excellency."

"Minister Margan knew." She watched this revelation take its effect upon the woman. McCabe didn't relax from her eyes-front position, but there was a wealth of revelation in those eyes.

"It seems Minister Margan likes to play games, your Majesty."

"So it would seem," Hoshi mused. This was important intelligence indeed. She decided not to dismiss McCabe too quickly; she could be the source of more intelligence about her Minister of Arms. "Would you like to see him?" Hoshi asked, testing. McCabe still kept her eyes facing forward, her tone and manner all military crispness, utterly correct. If anything, she spoke even more formally toward the bulkhead.

"Your Highness, if I am to be your First Officer, I will be unable to avoid seeing your Tactical Officer. However, I have no desire to do so. When I divorced him; that was final. I am Commander Patricia McCabe, my record is in your hand. If you still want me, I shall serve you and this ship faithfully as First Officer. If you do not wish me to do so; then give me leave and I will depart."

Hoshi considered this for a moment; then signaled for the surrounding M.A.C.O.s to lower their rifles. "There's no need to make a decision in haste."

She consulted the PADD in her hands, but was thinking more than reading. Finally, after a few moments in which she had to admit to being impressed by the details presented to her, which told the story of a long and distinguished career replete with successes in the service of the Empire, she looked up at the woman. "Your record is impressive, but before I make a decision, I want to take you to see your ex-husband."

She could see in McCabe's eyes that the woman knew she had no choice, and that she would put her own eyes out before seeing the man again. She did, however, accept it as a necessary first step in her potential appointment. "Very good, your Majesty."

"I don't do this capriciously. I'm sorry to have to tell you that Major Reed was recently severely injured. Our CMO is still uncertain if he will survive. But I am a very firm believer – especially lately – that we should not lose those we are, or once were, close to without having the chance to see them; if only to say 'goodbye'."

"That is considerate of you, your Grace," McCabe said carefully.

"Don't count on it. I have seen a lot of deaths lately – and too many of them have been by my hand. Some have not, and some I regret. I can be sympathetic – but when it's called for I'm also the coldest, hardest bitch you'll ever know."

xxx

Hoshi strode the wide white corridors with Commander McCabe, noting the woman's manner as she walked. McCabe, if possible, held herself in an even more strict military bearing than she had been in the Transporter Room. The woman took everything in; she was very much aware of everything about her, possibly even more so than Mayweather. She carried herself as a soldier, one ready for combat at any instant.

"Tell me about your career," Hoshi said. "You spent several years aboard the 'Emperor's Fist'."

"Yes, your Majesty. I boarded her seven years ago, and spent the last two as her X.O. before being transferred to Starfleet Headquarters."

"Why were you transferred?" She knew she could have read the information from the PADD in her hand, but wanted to hear it from the woman.

"Captain Markana had displeased the Emperor, and he feared having a strong X.O. while he was fallen from grace. He felt that if he did not have an X.O. who could move into his chair, he could secure his position."

"Too bad it didn't work." Hoshi said with mild irony. She already knew the story from her duties as Comm Officer when the 'Flag' had transferred to 'Enterprise'. Everybody who cared to know had access to the details as to why.

"Yes. Too bad." There was no regret in the woman's tone.

"That was eight months ago. Do you ever regret not being sent back? You could be Captain."

Patricia McCabe stopped dead, so that Hoshi turned to her. "Is this an offer, your Highness?"

Hoshi regarded her coolly, revealing nothing. "I don't know. Is it?"

x

McCabe thought about her old ship, and the knife that had been slipped between her ribs by the man she had served and the men at the Admiralty – former Admiralty – for whom she had been sent to work. Markana's disgrace had led to her unwilling reposting. She had gone from being Executive Officer, Second-in-Command of the Imperial Flagship to a Commander in a facility overrun with Admirals, Vice-Admirals, Rear Admirals, Branch Admirals, Commodores, Fleet Captains, Captains; all of whom divided their time between Starfleet Headquarters and the more prestigious Admiralty Headquarters. She had gone from Second-in-Command to someone so lowly rated she hadn't bothered to count the seniority.

With the right word, she could be walking the decks of her former ship again, Captain's bars upon her shoulders.

But then she looked at the wide, white corridor of _this_ ship, with the realization that she might – or might not – be its next First Officer. She would have to begin again the long process of establishing herself before she could hope to move into the center seat of this ship's bridge – if she ever did.

But the 'Emperor's Fist'; even if it retained that designation or was re-commissioned with a more feminine name, was her former ship; and it was still living its former Captain's disgrace. Everybody knew why the Flag had been transferred to 'Enterprise'. _This_ vessel was now the Flagship of a new Fleet – and she had enjoyed the prestige of serving aboard the Flagship.

She drew herself up to her full height, ramrod straight, and saluted her Empress. "By my Honor, I pledge myself and my life to the Service of the Empire and the Imperial Person; and to the Master of this Vessel for so long as I may serve upon it."

Impressed, Hoshi gave the formal response, but even so held to a difference. "In my Name, and that of the Empire, I accept your Pledge – for wherever you shall serve."

Thus, with promises given, and no promises given or exacted, they resumed their course toward Sick Bay.

x

As Travis Mayweather preceded Hoshi and Commander McCabe into Sick Bay, Phlox came out of the side room to meet them. "Ah, your Highness, I'm able to report that the Booth is almost ready. I have a team of technicians installing it in the Mess Hall even as we speak."

"Fine," she said dismissively. "That's not what I'm here for. How is Major Reed?"

"I've just seen him. He recovered consciousness about twenty minutes ago. I've just been filling him in on some of the changes around here."

"I imagine he's not too happy."

Phlox considered this understatement. With Archer and T'Pol both dead, he was next in line for Command, and very likely had expectations of claiming that plum position. But Hoshi Sato had never been a friend, and the chances of his advancing to the center seat, if she was in charge, were slim at best.

There was no humor, or compassion, in the Denobulan's small smile. He never used a large one. "I would say the Major's spirits could use some inflating."

"Well, I'm here to deflate them a bit further."

Phlox smiled in anticipation. It was a small, unnerving smile. Hoshi wondered if the Denobulan ever actually smiled broadly, or with anything that a Terran might consider pleasure. Then again, she decided she didn't want to know. She considered that a genuine smile from the dark Denobulan would be unsettling indeed.

x

She stepped into the side room, halted in the entryway.

Within, lying on a biobed as she had last seen him; was Major Malcolm Reed. She was pleased to see that Phlox had done a fine job in seeing that none of the damage from the explosion was visible upon him. He raised his head as she came in. "Well," he observed, "there have been some changes around here." He regarded her appreciatively, particularly her comely appearance in the flattering red dress, her long hair draped behind her. "You make a lovely Empress. Congratulations."

Hoshi saw he was being civil, more so than usual to her, in hopes of currying some type of favor – or at least making the best out of what was, for him, a bad turn of events. She didn't envy him waking up to such drastic changes in the expected power structure.

"How do you feel?"

Even as she asked this, Commander McCabe stepped into the room beside her, and Hoshi saw in his eyes that the arrival was not a welcome one. His smile disintegrated. "I've died," he let his head drop onto the pillow, looking up at the ceiling, "and gone to Hell."

"So nice to see you too, 'Malki'."

x

There was a dearth of affection in the intimate word. Malcolm turned only his head, sorry to see that she was not a drug induced hallucination.

"What are you doing here?" He'd only thought that things couldn't possibly get any worse for him. He saw she now wore a uniform, he didn't particularly care where she was assigned – or why she'd come aboard 'Defiant'.

"Can't a 'wife' see her 'husband' on his death bed?"

"It wasn't a 'death bed' until now."

"We can always hope for small blessings, 'darling'." He glared at her, but Hoshi had had enough.

"It's very clear you two know each other only too well."

"I was a starry-eyed seventeen year old idiot who fell for the town 'bad boy'," McCabe declared bitterly to Hoshi, the reunion having dredged up more bad memories and feelings than she wanted to face. She didn't even look at the man on the biobed, fixing her eyes on her Empress. "I couldn't wait to defy my parents and move out; get married to this…."

"Seems to me you enjoyed a lot of it," Reed reminded her.

"Oh, we had seven months of 'wedded bliss'," she continued addressing Hoshi, "until I realized just who it was I'd locked myself in with. I found out he was known as the town bad boy for a _reason._"

"Like I said, you didn't seem to mind that, either."

"Until I got knocked up," she explained to Hoshi, not even having looked at Reed beyond the first few moments, "and the next thing I knew he had up and enlisted, skipped town without even so much as a word. Gone off to see the stars and left me with a bun in the oven."

He looked back at the ceiling. "You didn't waste any time filing for divorce. How is the little git, by the way?"

Hoshi did not think McCabe's expression could get any harder; but it did as she turned on him. "The 'git' is _dead_."

Pure surprise filled his face.

"I _miscarried_ – in my eighth month. You never even _bothered_ to reply to my mails. _That_ was when I divorced you."

Reed's expression had surpassed shock and gone to sick astonishment. He tried to force himself to get up. "I never knew. You don't _get_ mess–"

"Save it, Reed," she commanded, halting his rising. "You had _twenty years_! Don't try to make me think you ever _gave_ a damn – I know you far too well! So spare me the aggrieved husband act."

Getting up had been too much of a challenge, especially against her refusal, so he lay back down again. "Patricia–"

"I said '_save it_'. I don't want to hear it. All I _care_ about is how you do your job, and how well you follow my orders."

He could only turn his head to her, sick apprehension in his tone. "What?" This time he _did_ see the epaulets on her shoulders and grew sicker.

Hoshi smiled. There was nothing pleasant in it. "Meet your new First Officer."

Surprise turned to ill certainty of doom. He put his head back down, staring at the ceiling, wishing it would crash down upon him.

"I was right. I _am_ in Hell."

"Not yet, 'darling'. Not _yet_."


	12. Scrambled Eggs

Chapter Twelve

Scrambled Eggs

"Your Majesty, if I may be so bold," McCabe observed as she and Hoshi walked together down the corridor, followed by Mayweather and two other M.A.C.O.s, "you seem to have made up your mind."

They walked in semi-privacy. The ship was still missing the majority of its crew, and Hoshi had sent Phlox on ahead of them with the cryptic message to 'prepare the demonstration'. Reed had been left in the care of Nurse Catherine Roehm of the 'Vindicator'. McCabe had not delayed to see whatever service her former husband had needed from the pretty young Yeoman.

Hoshi shook her head. "I'll let you know when I've made up my mind about you." Even this gesture had her characteristic seductiveness, even when she was not trying. "All that with Reed, from start to finish, was a test."

"Who were you testing; him or me?"

She looked sideways at McCabe, while not completely taking her eyes off the corridor ahead. "Both."

"I see."

"I know Reed. We served together for four years."

"Then you've been with him longer than I have."

"You sound like you feel sorry for me."

"I do."

Hoshi restrained a smile, which would have been a sad one. "Give it time. Twenty years change a person."

"For the better?"

"You'll have to decide _that_ for yourself." She walked a few meters in silence. "Tell me something – truthfully."

"If I can without getting a phase bolt in my back," McCabe answered, thoroughly aware of the three armed soldiers behind them. Hoshi stopped, and they faced each other directly.

"There will be no phase bolt. But I value honesty above all things, and I am known to deal _badly_ with those who lie to me."

"I understand."

"What are your ambitions?"

"My ambitions," Patricia said thoughtfully. She looked at the soldiers, then at her Empress, and knew there was no point in lying. She was sure the woman would read a lie and that she would be dead before her body hit the deck. "My ambitions are simple, your Majesty. My immediate one is to be the First Officer of the Imperial Flagship. Then I intend to be Captain. I plan to have a long and honored career as the finest Captain the Empire has ever known. Then, in a few years time, when I have learned what I need to learn and have built the necessary power base; when I am _ready_ to, I plan to move on to my ultimate goal."

"The Admiralty?"

"No, your Excellency. I intend to kill you and take your place as Empress."

x

For many long moments the women stared at each other in silent contest. All the while, Travis and his team stood waiting, waiting for the signal to cut this would-be usurper down.

Then a slow smile crept up on Hoshi's lips. "Exactly as I thought. Thank you for the honesty."

"You don't intend to kill me?"

"After that warning; if years from now you try to take my throne and succeed, you will _deserve_ to. I will have lost the right to hold it. Or perhaps the desire to," she finished speculatively. She regarded the woman for several moments before admitting: "You might indeed one day take my throne."

She turned and continued down the corridor. "Come with me."

"Where are we going?"

"To see if you have the eggs for it."

xx

The Mess Hall was larger than any shipboard facility Patricia McCabe had ever seen, suitable for providing for nearly three hundred crewpersons at any one meal, when two thirds of its crew of 430 would eat overlapping breakfasts and dinners. There was no visible entryway to a galley, but wall panels dispensed food in any variety and abundance.

But no Mess Hall had ever sported such a device as was being assembled in the far right corner of the room. Five technicians surrounded a tall cylindrical chamber, on the curved clear surface of which had been mounted numerous controls. Phlox stood nearby, supervising the final details of the installation.

There were twenty crewmen and women in various uniforms, mostly Imperial, having their meals and looking on with curious gazes. As the five approached the rear of the room, Phlox turned to them, pleased gratification as close to happiness as Hoshi had ever seen on the dark Denobulan's normally Saturnine face.

"As I said, we were able to install it in record time." He placed his hand upon the clear, curving surface. "Isn't it a beauty?"

"No."

Hoshi stared at the detestable device and wanted to be sick. It was by her order that it had been constructed and installed, exactly where she had told him to install it, but that didn't mean she was happy about it.

"Then what would you call it?"

"A _douche_!" All the men exchanged mystified glances. "It may sometimes be a necessity, but that doesn't mean we have to _like_ it."

Not one of them was stupid enough or suicidal enough to smile at the allusion.

x

"Does it work?" Hoshi asked tightly.

Phlox pushed the clear door and it slid aside, opening a portal. "We await only a test subject so we can make the final calibrations."

At that moment, the door slid open behind them, and they turned to see a red uniformed woman cross the large room. Lt. Cmdr. Mary Sherman had been off duty for some time, Alpha shift long over, but a summons from the Empress is neither disobeyed nor delayed.

Hoshi saw the redheaded Chief Engineer and her anger flared anew. 'Sometimes douches are a necessity.' she thought.

"You wanted to see me?" Sherman asked after she had saluted, trying to keep a measure of discomfort out of her voice. She recognized the device in the corner, having been part of the team that had installed its predecessor on 'Enterprise'. She had honestly hoped never to see its like again.

She had never seen it work, but the stories she'd heard….

x

"Yes, we did." Hoshi noted that the woman's red uniform, with its one solid and one broken stripe of gold at the wrists, was immaculate; not like the one drenched in the blood of Charles Tucker. But it was still blood red, and Hoshi doubted she would ever see it in any other manner.

Sherman kept her eyes focused upon her Empress', but she could not keep from seeing the despicable chamber as well.

Hoshi turned to the Booth, breaking eye contact with Mary, silently forcing her to look upon it as well. "As you can see, we've installed a more advanced version of the Booth." She noticed with approval that Travis was moving slowly, unobtrusively, to stand behind Sherman.

"I see, your Grace. I…" She looked at Hoshi – anything better than seeing the device. "If I may, I had thought that you were not going to recreate …" she had to look back, "…_this_."

"Changing circumstances forced us to amend our plans." Hoshi didn't look at the woman, for fear of growing so angry she would _stab_ her. "But right now, we need your assistance. You worked on the original."

"I did," she admitted tonelessly, reluctantly. It was not her favorite way to remember 'Enterprise'. She was even more reluctant to ask: "What do you need?"

"Just to perform some tests." At Hoshi's glance, Travis grabbed Sherman's arms, wrenched them forcefully behind the woman's back as she cried out from the sharp pain. He shoved her hard and she fell into the Booth, collided forcefully against the transparent surface. Before horror could give her the speed to turn and stop the sliding door, she was sealed in.

x

"Your Majesty!" Mary cried; her voice only slightly muffled as she pounded uselessly upon the clear surface. She tried to pry the door open, but it was locked. "Your Majesty! Please. No!" She cried desperately. "Please. Don't _do_ this!"

Hoshi stepped forward to confront the frantic woman, feeling great satisfaction fill her at Sherman's terror. She tried to imagine how Charles Tucker had felt, and the anger burned in her. "You killed _Tucker_." Phlox indicated a button on one of the control panels.

"NO!" Mary screamed. Hoshi pushed the button.

x

The redheaded woman's body convulsed and her shriek filled the entire hall. Hoshi let go of the control.

"Hmm, perhaps a bit too much too soon," Phlox mused. "If I may?" He stepped in, adjusted a control as Mary gasped deeply, trying to stay on her feet. It had felt like every organ in her body had been ripped out at once. "Now try it."

"No! PLEASE!" Sherman doubled over with a scream, grasping her stomach. Before she could fall to her knees, the pain shifted to her right leg and she clutched it, wailing in agony. Hoshi let go of the button.

"You _killed_ Tucker," she charged; all her hate and anger in that short expletive.

"I had–" She felt her right lung crushed and she screamed, clutching her chest. It seemed like an eternity before Hoshi released the control. "He _raped_ me, your Highness!" she cried desperately, trying to explain, to engage her tormentor's womanly sympathies. Hoshi pushed the button; Mary felt her breasts crushed; then ripped off her chest and she fell back against the rear wall with a shriek, clutching herself.

"Your Majesty?" McCabe interposed cautiously. She didn't want to reveal how horrified she was at this push-button torture. She had never imagined such a horror. Punishment and torture in discipline was nothing unusual, but this … this was obscene.

"There's no physical damage; just the sensation of pain," Hoshi explained, looking at the woman who would be her X.O., seeking something of her feelings. But McCabe was closed off, revealing nothing on her face, her body motionless, conveying nothing.

Patricia McCabe had not had an exemplary initial career, and more than once she had felt the lash of discipline; which had led to her present discipline and control. But this …. For the first time she watched punishment being meted out - and was frightened.

x

Hoshi turned back and pressed the button again. Sherman felt her left leg torn apart from the inside out and she shrieked piteously, bending in a desperate effort to hold it together. A few seconds later Hoshi released the button, leaving Sherman gasping. "You had no right," she told the groaning woman as Mary looked at her pleadingly.

"Please, your Majesty!" Sherman cried, tears streaming down her cheeks. "He _raped_ us. Abused us! He was _brutal_ and we couldn't do _anything_. Forrest didn't stop him. Archer didn't stop him."

"And _you_ didn't stop him!" she retorted, growing angrier. She doubted this woman fought him effectively. In fact, for as much as she knew of Sherman, the woman had not fought effectively at all.

Hoshi was disgusted. Tucker in his time had spent four hours in the old Booth and had not broken. Archer had spent _ten_ hours and returned to duty almost immediately. In less than two minutes in this new, improved Booth, Sherman was sobbing and pleading for mercy. No wonder Tucker had taken what he wanted from her when he wanted. She was weak, pitiful, a jumped-up little Ensign; not _fit_ to be an Officer of the Empire.

Hoshi stabbed the button and Mary felt a thousand swords tear her stomach apart. She clutched herself, screaming, crying piteously. The Booth was so confining she could not even fall. Hoshi released the button.

"_I_ am in Command. You _knew_ that." She pushed it again and Mary felt her right shoulder ripped off. She let it go. "_I_ am Empress." A bomb exploded in Mary's back, and her shriek echoed through the hall. "You did not come to _me_." Mary felt her left hand crushed beneath a thousand pound weight.

Hoshi released the button and Mary stood sobbing, clutching herself, leaning against the curved wall, broken, not knowing from whence the next agony would come. She wanted to collapse, to fall to her knees in pleading, but there was no room to do so. The Booth was perverse; too cramped to move, just wide enough to writhe about in agony. "_Please_!" she begged, tears streaming down her cheeks. "_Mercy_!" she pled, crying. "I was _afraid_!"

"I'll _teach_ you fear." Mary felt her pelvis smashed by a dozen sledges as she wailed piteously. Hoshi released the control, and a moment later the woman's jaw was pulled off her face. Though she clutched it, her hands couldn't muffle her scream.

"He was not _yours_ to _kill_," Hoshi told her furiously when the woman had been reduced to a sobbing wreck. She lay against the curving wall, weeping; her weakness only filling Hoshi with greater disgust and anger. "He would not have been Captain. I had other plans for him – but it was not for you to _decide_." Hoshi stabbed the button and Mary shrieked as she felt her legs torn off at her pelvis as hammers smashed her shoulder blades.

Hoshi let go of the button, and Mary tried to keep standing, hands pressed to the sides of the cylinder, gasping and sobbing. "I'm sorry!" she cried, unable to stop the tears. "I'm so _sorry_!"

"His life was _mine_." A hundred blades tore Mary's stomach apart and she clutched it tightly, shrieking, trying to keep her intestines from falling to the floor. Hoshi let go for only a moment. "_Your_ life is mine." Mary felt her chest torn open and she fell backward, unable to keep her organs inside. It was a very long moment before Hoshi finally let go of the button. Mary lay weakly against the back of the cylinder, sobbing brokenly, gasping for breath stolen in screams.

"Please...." she begged between sobs. "Please stop! _Please_."

Hoshi watched the weeping woman for many moments, her anger undiminished. In fact, she was even more disgusted at the woman's weakness. No wonder Tucker had taken her so easily and frequently. She couldn't even stand up for herself.

She looked at Phlox who was working beside her. "Can you control the specific nerves stimulated?"

"Of course," the dark Denobulan replied with an anticipatory smile. He so _loved_ doing experiments.

She looked at her Chief Engineer, but continued to address the Doctor. "This all started because she was concerned about rape." Phlox nodded in understanding. Mary looked up; panic stealing her tears, and in her eyes was the horrible realization of Hoshi's thought.

"_No_!" she gasped desperately, pushing off from the cylinder. "Please. _Please don't_!" she begged in mortal terror. Phlox nodded his readiness.

"All the way," she ordered.

"Please, your Majesty! _Please_ don't do this! _Please_! Have _MERCY_! I–" Hoshi jammed her finger onto the button and Mary's hands flashed to her crotch as she screeched, convulsing wildly. She screamed over and over, but as the torment drew on Hoshi wouldn't let go of the button. Mary's shrieks echoed through the Mess Hall. She clung to herself, unable to defend herself from the assault.

Hoshi glanced at McCabe standing next to her, watching Sherman's agony, looking for something to gauge the woman's reactions, but McCabe's face was wooden, allowing nothing of what she felt to show as she watched the woman shrieking in horrendous, intimate agony.

Finally, with a cataclysmic screech, Mary collapsed, her body wedged into the tight confines of the cylinder and she did not move. Only then did Hoshi release the button.

x

Sato turned away from the cylinder to find a score of crewmen and women standing in various spots in the large Mess Hall, staring in horror. She stared at each of them, and one by one they returned to their seats, averting their eyes, but they did not lose that look of horror.

"Set it on random, automatic, and keep her on medium boil until I tell you otherwise." She walked away. The three guards started to follow. "Travis only," she said sharply, not glancing back.

She strode out into the corridor, not looking to see if Travis was behind her. She knew he was. She crossed the corridor and opened the door opposite the Mess Hall, finding crew quarters. "Stay here," she ordered and went in alone.

x

Empress Hoshi Sato stood in the silent room, just listening to her breath. "'To see if you have the eggs for it'," she repeated in an ironic whisper. A moment later she crossed the quarters, going into the personal.

Closing the door, sealing herself into the small chamber, she knelt down carefully, raised the lid before her, leaned over and began to vomit.


	13. Weakness and Strength

Chapter Thirteen

Weakness and Strength

It took a very long time, so long that Hoshi thought that every meal she had eaten aboard this ship had come back. Finally it was over and she could lean back. Mayweather was beside her, his arm draped supportively about her shoulders. She had never heard the door open. "Get the fu–"

"No."

Astonishment at his cut-off prevented her from resisting as he reached up to a control; the rush of water which disposed of the detritus unusually loud to her ears.

She knelt, leaning against his support, simultaneously embarrassed and grateful. He reached with his free left hand to a short stack of towels, wetting one in a stream of cold water from the sink and pressing the cool cloth to her forehead, never once relaxing his supporting grip about her.

Hoshi held the towel to her forehead, gradually feeling the universe, and her stomach, settle back into place. When she could look into the eyes of her bodyguard, she didn't know what to say.

"Thank you," seemed too little.

"For what?" he allowed a small smile. "All I see is my Empress working at a desk."

She couldn't imagine being more grateful. "A desk sounds nice right about now."

He helped her to stand, and in a small mirrored cabinet they found refreshing compounds. Hoshi washed out her mouth several times before she felt better, and by the time they'd left the tight confines of the privy her nausea had largely passed.

Perceiving she no longer needed his support, Travis released her and she eased herself into a chair at the desk. She didn't have any words for what had happened, and he wisely didn't volunteer any.

x

She had been furious with Sherman, but Hoshi realized her fury came more from Sherman's taking upon herself the decision to kill Tucker. She hadn't wanted Tucker dead.

Far beyond any feelings of friendship she had had for the man, she could not afford to lose his skills as an Engineer. Beyond his value as the only surviving Command Officer of 'Enterprise', someone she knew just how far she could trust, she needed him as a Chief Engineer.

But now she was stuck with Sherman, unless she let Margan 'recommend' a replacement – and she wasn't happy with the way he'd _recommended_ an Executive Officer. He'd clearly had it in mind even before Tucker's death - he hadn't known Tucker had died. Furthermore, his choice of an X.O. had too much irony for her liking.

Still, the woman McCabe seemed competent, and just might make a good X.O. She supposed she should send Margan a message thanking him – and she must not forget to inquire about the health of his granddaughters.

x

But right now, Mary Sherman was her problem. There was no one else she could choose as Chief Engineer. Tucker had executed 'Vindicator's C.E. as a 'lesson' to that ship's crew, and the 'Avenger's C.E. had been a Betazoid and had gone up with his ship.

Not that she would _ever_ allow a Betazoid into close proximity to her. Members of that telepathic race made excellent covert spies, but she didn't trust them. She had too many plans, too many concerns, to allow someone near her who could read her mind.

"Bridge to Empress Sato." The intercom set upon the desk broke her reverie.

'Then again, maybe mind reading is not necessary.' She thought in a glance to Mayweather, her expressive eyes sending them back to their previous discussion of just hours before, before reaching out to touch the activation button on the monitor standing upon the desktop. "Sato here."

x

The face of Grace Winters appeared on the screen. "Your Majesty, we have just received a message from the Andorians. They have accepted all the terms you set for the Conference."

Hoshi restrained any change of expression. She had counted upon the reactionary Andorians to make the first move. Where they led, many of the factions would follow. Now she only had to make sure they 'led' right behind her. "Remind them one ship has safe passage to Earth. I will meet with one representative, who must be empowered to make a binding Agreement for his people. I will tolerate no prevarications. Have them transmit identity and ETA."

"Yes, your Majesty."

"Now listen carefully, this is what I want done." She gave long and detailed instructions that would involve many divisions of the ship and its resources in a special covert operation. It was a long time before she could close the channel and lean back with a sigh, eyes closed. "And so it begins."

x

Hoshi sat for a long moment with her head back, long enough to prompt Travis to inquire "Are you all right, your Highness?"

She opened her eyes just far enough to see him. "I'll thank you not to ask me stupid questions."

"Yes, your Highness."

"I was just reflecting. I told Phlox, when I told him that I would never allow the Booth to be built again, that 'there should be consequences to the inflictor of pain as well as to the recipient'. I hadn't known then how right I was."

"It would seem so."

"Do you think I should have had it built?"

"I wouldn't want to be inside it."

"Are you afraid of it?"

For a moment he didn't answer. He didn't want to say 'yes', he couldn't say 'no'.

"Pit me against any man, and I'll give him the worst day of his life – or the last. But that thing is _convenient cruelty_. It should never have been invented."

"I agree."

"It's also the best deterrent to violating regulations that we have ever had."

Hoshi sighed sadly. "I agree."

x

After a long moment she sat forward and activated the monitor. "Empress Sato to the Mess Hall." A moment later the circuit was complete. She didn't activate the visual circuit. She didn't want to be seen, and she didn't want to see. Even before anyone spoke, agonized screams cut through the circuits.

"Phlox here." Interesting that, in the huge room across the corridor, he would be the one to take the call, as if he had known it would be for him. Another scream of agony filled the air, but the pain that caused Hoshi to wince was in her conscience.

"Turn Sherman loose." Hoshi had realized, part of the way through the woman's 'discipline', that it had moved from punishment to something far worse. Her own choice of the spot on which to focus the most massive jolt had been what had truly sickened her. It was as if she were punishing the woman for being the victim of what Tucker had done to her that had led to his own death.

"She may rest," she could not appear to be too weak or sympathetic, or too sorry for her own revenge, "for fifteen – for ten minutes. Then I want her back on duty."

"Yes, your Excellency." There were no longer any screams in the background, but that silence lasted only a moment. Then came broken, hysterical sobbing that stabbed her heart. The sound receded from the audio monitor, but never stopped.

"Is Commander McCabe still with you?" She hardly needed to ask, but wanted to test nonetheless. Where else would McCabe go without her leave?

"This is McCabe," the woman reported crisply. Her voice did not carry any effect from what she had witnessed. Hoshi decided she would have to ask her.

"In twenty minutes meet me in," she hesitated. She hated the fact that this wholly remarkable ship didn't have a Ready Room for the Commander's use. Did they hold all conferences in that far removed Briefing Room? That was a design flaw she intended to correct in the future Fleet. "…in the Briefing Room. One of the M.A.C.O.s will escort you while the other attends to Sherman."

If McCabe was to be First Officer, or for whomever did hold that post, Hoshi would have to see that the X.O., like the Captain, had a Personal Guard. Perhaps if Tucker had had one…

This she had no choice but to file under 'too little, too late'.

"Aye, your Majesty. Twenty minutes."

Hoshi switched off the circuit and stood up, grateful to cut off the sounds of sobbing, grateful for the silence. She was not entirely sure whether Sherman, who had not been able to stand against an ongoing series of abuses by her superior officer, was particularly weak; or that this 'new improved' Booth was so much more terrible than its predecessor.

Either way, she didn't believe she would ever order anyone into it again.

x

It would be some minutes before anyone left the Mess Hall across the corridor. She would not meet anyone. It was not that she was concerned, but that she simply didn't want to endure anyone's company now.

"Where next, your Highness?"

"My quarters. I really need to freshen up."

xxx

Hoshi Sato pulled the scarlet dress off her shoulders and pushed it to her waist when the intercom on her desk whistled at her. She turned to the offending device, but the monitor set upon the desktop was dark. She glanced at Travis who stood just inside the door. "Would you mind shooting that thing?" she asked, exasperated at having been called again.

Travis thought it was an odd request, but raised his phaser rifle anyway.

"Wait! I didn't _mean_ it." He lowered the rifle again as she sighed. "God."

She didn't stop to think about the contradiction of invoking a deity when the Empire had categorically proven, even to the most stubborn or backward, that there _is_ no 'god'.

She drew up the material to cover her bare chest. It was one thing to be naked, or half naked, before someone in privacy, but though the Imperial Starfleet had trained such nonsense as 'modesty' out of women by the selection of uniform design, she was still particular to whom she granted this privilege. She touched the activation control. "Yes, what is it?" she asked irritably as the monitor came to life. Upon it appeared the face of Lt. John Wilson.

"Your Majesty, I am pleased to announce that I have returned with 225 of the top ranked 3rd year Cadets from the Academy. As ordered, they are selected purely by Academic excellence and loyalty, and all are anxious to prove themselves to their Empress."

"Very well; I shall address them in the Shuttle Bay. Assemble them there immediately."

"Yes, your Excellency."

"Then contact Commander McCabe and tell her there is a change in plan. Have her meet me in the Shuttle Bay."

She turned off the monitor and sighed.

"Now I know why the Emperor had a Regent." She said tiredly, pushing her arms back into the sleeves of her dress. "What time is it?" She turned around, clearly intending for him to finish zipping the dress up in back.

"Twenty two seventeen hours, your Majesty," he told her matter-of-factly as he completed the task.

She looked over her shoulder at him. "You're kidding."

"No, your Majesty," Travis said as if he had never conceived of such a thing.

"All right. We'll get done with this – and then I'm going to _bed_."

xxx

The cavernous Shuttle Bay was large enough to house six craft, three along each wall with the central area set aside for launches and landings. It was two stories high and one hundred feet long. On the second level there were a control booth and a railed platform that ran the length of the starboard, or left side of the room when looking toward the towering doors that formed the rear access port of this ship. When those two huge doors parted, the entirely of the cosmos was displayed beyond them.

Assembled on the main level along the landing platform, facing the high control booth, were nine ranks of twenty five men and women, all holding strict Attention, arrayed with the precision seemingly only possible with Cadets. Lt. Wilson had aligned them and, having orders not to remain, had departed. It would be inappropriate for anybody to detract attention from the Imperial Presence.

How different this was from the group that had faced Jonathan Archer in the Fighter Bay of the 'Avenger' just days ago. That group had been seasoned and jaded veterans; she herself had been there, arms folded in as insolent a manner as she dared, listening with strained patience to her former Commander speak of treason and rebellion as he walked upon a fighter craft, spouting plans for conquest. His speech had been intended to rally the crews to his cause but had done nothing to win the support of non-Terrans, who saw nothing in his plan for them save the destruction of their worlds and their own deaths.

That mad scheme, in fact, had become the basis for her entire plan of unifying the Empire, only she would use the lessons of the Federation instead of the Empire.

Now it was she who stood in the control booth on an elevated platform, facing seven ranks of fresh faced Cadets, the pride of the Terran Empire. They held themselves in precision formation, waiting to be addressed by their Empress.

She hoped she would make a better speech.

x

Hoshi stepped out of the booth onto the platform where she could be seen, followed by Commander McCabe, Travis Mayweather and Paul Estes. She'd assigned Estes as McCabe's Personal Guard during her unknown time aboard. Now she watched two hundred twenty five men and women salute in unison, and stand firm to receive her orders.

She knew that this moment was one about which some of those assembled before her would tell their own grandchildren; the day they saw the Empress with their own eyes, and were addressed by their Supreme Leader before beginning a career of Honor and Glory.

Hoshi just wanted to get through it without stammering.

x

"TONIGHT…" she began, and had to pause as her amplified voice boomed through the tremendous chamber, seeming to echo into eternity. She glared at Travis, who adjusted a control at his belt. "You stand at the beginning of the New Age of the Empire." Now her voice did reverberate impressively, but with no risk of blowing out bulkheads.

"You men and women, young though you are, form the backbone of the Empire. This Flagship, the first of its kind, will be the ship that sees the end of the Rebellion and that ushers in a Golden Age. This is the beginning of an era that will bring the Empire not to its former glory, but to a Glory surpassing anything you have ever imagined.

"You brave men and women are the best that Starfleet has to offer. Here you will be tested by technologies your grandchildren would not have been ready to wield. Your training, your adaptability, your wisdom will be tested beyond your imagining, and you will all succeed.

"I know I can depend upon each and every one of you. Together, you will bring the Empire to the Glory it deserves. Your names will go down in History for what you are about to do here; and you will know the Honor of being the Pride of the Empire.

"Today, with you, Earth shall be Supreme. Long Live Earth; Long Live the Empire!"

Two hundred twenty eight soldiers, including the three beside her, struck their chests in unison, hands thrust stiffly out, and their cry reverberated through the chamber. "Long Live Earth; Long Live the Empire!"

x

Commander McCabe took a half step forward. "Each of you has been assigned your berth, and will be given your departments and stations. About …" She paused a moment. "_Face_." As the throng snapped about, the door to the outer corridor opened. "By Files, Right, Forward … March!"

The nine rightmost Cadets marched forward with carefully drilled precision, departing in single file, followed by the next nine and then the next until all had departed. Ultimately, Hoshi, McCabe, Mayweather and Estes were left alone on the upper platform. Hoshi turned to McCabe. "So, what did you think of my speech?"

Patricia McCabe didn't even glance at Mayweather behind her, nor at Estes who nominally backed her up but surely not against the Empress. She faced up to Hoshi directly. "Rhetorical bullshit, your Majesty."

Hoshi did glance briefly at Mayweather, and could not completely restrain a pleased smile as she carefully appraised the taller woman.

"You've got the job."


	14. Vengence and Loyalty

Chapter Fourteen

Vengeance and Loyalty

Empress Hoshi Sato pulled down the zipper in the back of her long scarlet dress and pulled her sleeves out of the arms. She paused, held the blood red cloth to her chest, eyeing her Personal Guard. "You should be outside," she observed.

"Were I to open the door, your other guards outside could not keep anyone from seeing inside. This ship is growing crowded now, your Majesty. Though if you wish…" he said, starting to turn toward the door.

"Wait." He paused. His words had been empty. Hoshi was standing in the smaller 'bedroom' section of the room that comprised the Captain's quarters, now her own since the extermination of Archer, and there was no direct line of sight from the door. But she didn't want to be alone, something she had subconsciously decided when she'd led him into the rooms and started to remove her dress – again.

This time, she decided, no call was going to make her come out again.

She watched him, even while holding the red dress against her bare chest. She thought of all the times she had worked hard to seduce this man, to gain his loyalty at a time when loyalty was not hers to claim, and was an uncertain thing at best. She had used all her skills, all her feminine wiles, to have him; so that when the time came he would support her, not Archer. She had worked very hard, even when she had been with Forrest, and Maximilian had claimed the man's loyalty and protection.

But now she was tired; too tired to think of loyalty or seduction or games; or conferences or betrayals or schemes; or judgments or friends or enemies; or sides or wars or battles. She was too tired even to hold the dress up against her bare chest, but let her arm drop, let the material drop, let everything drop.

xxx

Lt. Commander Mary Sherman tried to take the last few steps to her quarters, but in the end the phantom pain that filled her body took its toll and she lay weakly against the bulkhead ten meters from her door, so near and yet so far. She had been on duty since the beginning of Alpha shift 16 hours before, through the end of Beta, and she had been tortured beyond anything she had ever conceived. Worse even than Tucker's brutality, the pain hadn't ended when she had been released from the Booth and dumped unceremoniously into a chair, granted a ten minute rest before being ordered to return to duty. No, it remained with her, a constant companion and tormentor.

Now she had integrated – or started to integrate – a new Engineering crew; three of twenty from the surface to add to the twenty she already had. At nearly midnight she had been informed that twenty one more had been beamed up en masse from the surface, bringing her staff to forty four; and she had turned everything over to an Assistant and _left_.

Let him deal with the headache – it's his shift.

She knew that the pain from the Agony Booth had been in her nerves, not the result of any physical injuries, and therefore should not have continued when she had been released, but it did. It remained with her to torture her, probably caused by wrenched muscles as she had writhed in agony, begging and pleading for mercy that never came. The torment had been just as bad, or worse, when they had set the machine on 'automatic'.

Phlox had been constantly tinkering with it, adjusting field strengths, calibrating synaptic scans so that the force would be even more effective upon her body, not caring a damn about the pain he was inflicting upon her. She had watched him smiling contentedly as he worked, as she writhed and screamed and begged and pleaded and cried; and he took more readings and measurements and fine tuned the device so it would hurt _more_.

The Denobulan had an absolute disregard for her suffering. It was worse even than Sato. The woman had wanted revenge. That she could comprehend, even though she hated that bitch whore, that manipulative walking vagina, that twisted immoral sadistic slut who used her admittedly sexy body to ride to the throne through every bed on 'Enterprise' and most of 'Defiant'. She hated her now with every fiber of her being and would gladly skin her alive, cut out her organs, gouge out her love tunnel, slice off her….

But Phlox had worked with a clinical disregard for her that was mind-bogglingly chilling. He didn't care. He was utterly callous. He didn't give a damn that she was in agony, shrieking for mercy. He could have stopped at any time. He had no emotional stake in her torture; he simply did it – because he _enjoyed_ calibrating the machine. It was just another _experiment_ to him. She was just another test subject for his research – nothing more.

Worst of all, she could not endure the monumental unfairness of being tortured for having been raped.

She would get her revenge. She would get even with each and every one of them. She would get –

x

For now she had to get to her quarters and rest. It was just up ahead. She was on duty in barely eight hours, and if she were late the Bitch Empress would love nothing more than to put her back into the Booth.

She pushed off the bulkhead, took a wobbly step, and when her knee gave out she fell to the deck with a pained cry.

"Here, are you all right?" a voice called from behind her. She got her head up just in time to see a young man kneel on one knee beside her. She could barely speak to answer, but she could take in light sandy hair, a young face and the plain, unadorned uniform of a Starfleet Academy Cadet. "Are you hurt?" he asked solicitously.

"I – I'm –." She considered lying, but suddenly a thought came to her, the inkling of a plan. "I'm hurt," she gasped.

He looked up and down the corridor, but they were alone. She studied him through pain veiled eyes. He couldn't even be twenty.

"What can I do?"

"My … quarters. Help me. I've – I've got to get to my quarters."

She feigned barely enough strength to get her left arm about his neck as he helped her up to her feet, then she leaned her full weight weakly upon him. "Please," she gasped. "I can't make it without you."

Supporting her body against his – and he really did have a nice body, she realized – he helped her down the corridor. Her door opened to them.

"The bed … please," she gasped. "Please. Get me on the bed." Last night it had been a scene of pain, brutality and horror; tonight it would be the opening setting for her revenge.

x

He helped her to sit down upon her bed, and she tugged at the hem of her red uniform, but she was sitting on the skirt. "Please," she begged the young man standing before her, "help me take my dress off."

She looked up in time to see the color drain from his face. She revised her estimate down to eighteen. "Please... take off my dress."

She could see in his eyes how little he believed his good fortune – a beautiful, sexy redhead begging him to undress her. His hands were shaking slightly as he lifted the material up. She raised her arms up to help him clear them, and as the dress came off her bare skin she collapsed forward onto him with a sigh. She leaned her upper body against him, enough to feel his heat. Watching the bulge in his pants, she knew he enjoyed the warmth of her bare flesh.

"Please," she whispered weakly, raising an arm to him. He took her hand, his other hand around her body and sat her up. As he did, her left breast brushed against his arm as she knew it would, and as he had tried to hide that it would. "Please," she sighed.

"What can I do?" he asked, his voice shaking slightly.

"I'm hurt," she whispered weakly. "They hurt me so much. Please. Help me." She tried to push her red underpants off her hips, but was too 'weak' to move the material. She got her thumbs into the waistband, snagging her panties as well. "Please, help me get them off," she sighed.

She let him lay her down on her back.

She looked up at him with veiled eyes as he reached for her with trembling hands. His face was red and he was sweating, and she could almost hear the pounding of his heart. He took her short pants and her panties and drew them down her long, sexy legs. As he did, his eyes attempted the impossible task of caressing her legs while locking on the red thatch of hair at her pubes and the delights it didn't veil. She allowed her thighs to remain slightly open.

Yes, he had to be only eighteen, she realized, watching his red face as his breath continued to quicken. He drew her pants off over her calf high black boots.

"My boots. Please." She whispered, growing 'weaker'. He pulled the zippers down with shaking hands, pealing the boots off her and letting them fall to the floor. Her legs had 'accidentally' drifted apart as he worked.

He stood looking down at her for a moment. "Shouldn't I get you under the covers?" he asked so naively she nearly smiled. She reached for him, but her movements were so vague she 'accidentally' touched the front of his pants, brushing over him.

She raised her hands to him, and he very willingly bent close. "My strong, virile savior. How can I ever repay you for your help?" she whispered as she pulled him down to her, pulled his body almost upon her, pulled him down to her lips while her other hand guided his to her breast.

xxx

Commander Patricia McCabe felt very gratified as she entered her assigned quarters, leaving Paul Estes on guard outside. She'd told him he could call for relief when he was too fatigued to continue through the night at full alertness, but she made certain he would be cautious to make a good choice in his selection of a relief. She would see to it that if her security was breached, and she survived, he would be held responsible for his replacement's inadequacy.

She was, however, perfectly capable of seeing to her own defense. On the 'Emperor's Fist' she hadn't had a bodyguard, so she was used to protecting herself from unexpected challenges to her authority and position. On only two occasions had anyone thought to test her ability, and each of them now floated in the icy cold of space. She was confident that on 'Defiant' things would be no different.

It was 0021 hours, the beginning of her first official day as Executive Officer of the starship 'Defiant', and she could not imagine feeling better. The satisfaction even overwhelmed the fact that she was going to be serving with her 'beloved' ex-husband.

No. Strike that. She was X.O. _He_ would be serving _her_. It was such a wholly delicious change from twenty years ago that she couldn't help but revel in it.

She didn't know who she was going to be Executive Officer to, however. A Captain had not yet been chosen; to date there were no candidates the Empress trusted. Who knew? If she played her cards properly in these next few days, perhaps the Empress might be looking for _her_ X.O.

x

Looking about her new quarters, so much larger and more ornate than any of her previous ones, her eyes fell upon the open closet set into the side bulkhead. Within was a collection of short gold dresses placed by some unknown Quartermaster. She pulled one out, looking at it. Positioned where it would lay upon her left breast was a pair of oddly joined gold rectangles, in the middle of which was depicted a black five pointed star, the uppermost point almost three times too high to be symmetrical. It was similar to the M.A.C.O. emblem used on rank insignia, except black rather than white, similar enough for her to wonder about the significance. Two solid bands of gold surrounded each wrist.

Turning it about, she held the material against her, turning to the full length mirror on the bulkhead beside the head of her bunk. The dress had a generously scooped neckline and was scandalously short. She would have to be cautious bending down, careful of both front _and_ back. But still, if there was one thing that the midriff Imperial uniforms, as well as random but unknown 'monitoring' by Security, taught women, it was that modesty was a waste of effort.

Viewing the uniform against her body, she had to admit she would look very good in it, especially if it was as tight as it threatened to be. She considered trying it on, but that would wait for tomorrow.

Putting it back, she unzipped the short top of her 'old' uniform, wondering if she would miss it. Pulling it off her shoulders and letting it drop down her arms, she placed it on the bunk beside her and rubbed her bare breasts, lightly stroking with her fingernails all of her exposed body; front, back and sides, returning sensation after the hours of confinement. Maybe, she decided, she would not miss this uniform.

Turning from the closet, she sat down at the desk in the 'outer' half of her room, leaning back, enjoying the coolness of the chair on her bare back. It had been a full, hectic day; and she had a lot to consider, a lot to adjust to.

x

That Booth had been an unsettling surprise. She hadn't known what to expect earlier, when Hoshi had told her she was bringing her to see if she had the 'eggs' to fulfill her avowed plan to take over the Empire? She had quickly found out.

Certainly, when the Chief Engineer had been thrown into the contraption, McCabe had expected an execution. She hadn't known the purpose of the Booth. But though she had carefully hidden her thoughts and feelings behind a very well practiced mask, she had to believe that the woman's execution would have been far more merciful than what she had been subjected to.

After Hoshi had departed, Patricia had been left behind to watch the woman's continued torture. The Denobulan Doctor – Phlox, she recalled – had worked callously, making adjustments to the controls as the torture continued, calibrating the controls guided by the woman's screams.

Patricia had been as horrified by the spectacle as the other crewmembers scattered about the room; she just had more practice in hiding it. Looking about the room, just moving her eyes while facing the technicians working at the controls of the Booth, she had been stricken by the wide range of emotions to the lovely redhead's torture, extending all the way from a sick horror to an even sicker fascinated pleasure.

Commander Patricia McCabe of the Imperial Starfleet had never considered herself particularly squeamish or sensitive, nor was she the sort of weak-willed individual that might consider 'praying' to some legendary but proven-to-be-non-existent deity. owever,However, as she watched the woman writhing in pain, crying and shrieking at invisible torments, she hoped that the story of that torture would spread to the point that she would never have to order someone under her command into that Booth.

x

With a sigh, McCabe wondered just what sort of situation she had been thrust into. The only thing she truly knew about this vessel was the obvious and undeniable fact that it was from the future, about 100 years distant. But unlike the 'normal' vessels of the Empire, this one lacked, for some unexplained reason, the ubiquitous Imperial emblems, as well as many of the customary accoutrements. The uniforms were distinctly different, as was just about everything else. It didn't really seem to be the next generation of Imperial technology and culture.

x

If this ship were from the future, it should contain historical records and information about the people she served with. Reaching out, she touched a control below the monitor before her. "Computer?"

"Working." A female voice responded almost immediately. McCabe was momentarily surprised. A female voice? How odd. Nevertheless….

"Display information on Imperial Starfleet Lieutenant Hoshi Sato."

"There is no record of an Imperial Starfleet."

'What?' McCabe thought, even more surprised. "Computer, is there a record of Hoshi Sato in your databanks?"

"Affirmative," the womanly voice replied.

"Display details on monitor."

The image that appeared was from an 'Historical Archive, Starfleet Personnel' and contained a picture of a young woman who was certainly the one that McCabe had been with so short a time ago. But there was something very wrong. The face was patently the same, but this one was smiling as though she didn't have a stress in the cosmos. She had her hair drawn back in a pony tail, and the uniform she was wearing was very, very wrong. For one thing, it contained a black lower shirt that female Imperial uniforms do not have, but it didn't possess rank epaulets at the woman's shoulders. It did, however, contain three tiny rectangular silver pins above the woman's right breast, the significance of which McCabe didn't know.

x

Hoshi Sato, until recently, had been a Lieutenant. But the text displayed beside the picture was very wrong. 'Starfleet Personnel File: Sato, Hoshi. Serial _Number_ (not _letters_?) SA-037-0198-CL'. This is wrong. Imperial identifications are made up of letters only. Her own ID is 'PMCC-YBNAUZLQXM'; the latter set alone allowed for 10 designations raised to the 26th power, more than enough to cover any possible number of serving members, more than 141 quadrillion since the beginning of Starfleet. Sato's should be HS-something.

She continued reading. 'Rank at retirement: Lieutenant Commander.' This was wrong too. Even if this was the original history of the woman.... No, from what little McCabe knew of temporal mechanics, the very fact that she is now 'Empress' should have spontaneously updated the historical records. The 'old history' should not have been preserved _anywhere_.

'First Long-Range Assignment: Communications and Protocol Officer, Enterprise NX-01.' Protocol officer? What the _hell_ is a 'protocol' officer? 'Birthplace: Kyoto, Japan, Earth.' Well, finally something she could take at face value. The woman is definitely Japanese. In fact, her name was 'Star' in that language. She read further.

'Hoshi Sato served as translator, and protocol and communications officer on Starfleet's first Warp Five Starship, Enterprise NX-01. Born in Kyoto, Japan on July 9, 2129, she was the second child in a family of three. After leaving Starfleet in her late thirties,' (within fifteen years from now, since she's 25?), 'Sato created the Linguacode Translation Matrix, which is still in use aboard Federation starships today.'

'_What the hell is this garbage_?' McCabe thought, outraged. Even if history had not been spontaneously updated; something she found ridiculously inconsistent with known, or at least accepted, temporal theories - what the _hell_ is a _Federation_?

"Computer, what the _hell_ is the 'Federation'?"

"The United Federation of Planets was chartered in the year 2161 as an Alliance of seventeen worlds, or one hundred fifty three worlds as of the present date. The Charter was signed at–"

"Stop!" McCabe ordered, shocked. "Did the Terran Empire collapse?"

"There is no record of a 'Terran Empire'."

She felt her blood go cold.

"Computer, produce a summary of the major events of Earth history from …" She considered. Ten years back? "From 2145 to the present."

Patricia McCabe didn't get to bed for two more hours, and was awake much longer than that.


	15. Betrayals?

Chapter Fifteen

Betrayals?

Just five minutes after Hoshi Sato had pulled herself out of her dream, the intercom whistle ascended and descended in tone above her head. She reached up to the shelf beside her, found the button next to the tiny speaker. "Yes?"

"Your Highness," Grace Winters reported, "you wanted to be alerted two hours before the Andorian ship arrived."

"Yes." She pushed the blanket aside and swung her feet onto the floor. "What time is it?"

"1137 hours."

Hoshi smiled. Sometimes it was nice to be Empress. "Inform Commander McCabe I will meet her in the Briefing Room in 45 minutes."

"Yes, your Highness." The circuit clicked off. Getting off the bed, she crossed the room to her Personal. She supposed that Travis was outside her door, waiting on guard for her. He must have left sometime in the late night; she'd fallen asleep wrapped in the warmth of his arms and other things.

She wondered if he felt as contented as she did.

xxx

When she entered the Briefing Room, this time clothed in a flowing blue gown of Risan silk that matched her shadowed eyes and seemed to change shades of blue with her movements, she found Commander McCabe staring at the three sided monitor in the middle of the table, so engrossed that she did not move. The woman wore her new gold uniform.

Standing behind her was Private Paul Estes, who saluted sharply as Hoshi entered. She silently cocked her thumb over her shoulder, directing him outside. He would guard them from the outer corridor. She had no problem with trusting the man, but by her own order he was to give his primary concern to Patricia McCabe's safety, and she didn't want anyone present whose first loyalty was not to her, even if it was by her own order.

He exited smartly, and still McCabe did not look away from the screen. Hoshi wondered just what could be so absorbing that would leave a trained and skilled Imperial Officer oblivious to what was happening literally behind her back. She wondered if perhaps her confidence in the woman had been misplaced.

She stepped up to within four feet and to the right of the absorbed woman and snapped: "Have you forgotten how to _salute_?"

McCabe leapt up so suddenly that the chair she was seated in toppled over with a resounding thump. She whirled about, snapped to attention and saluted sharply. Hoshi had stood back just far enough.

"Your Majesty!" McCabe exclaimed. She did not look guilty, but she had been thoroughly startled. Leaving her to hold the salute, Hoshi glanced over at what had been so absorbing, finding the screen displaying a history of the United Federation of Planets.

Hoshi returned the salute, allowing McCabe to lower her arm, but then she appraised her First Officer thoroughly. The scoop-necked gold uniform came down _just_ far enough past her hips to be considered decent – on some planet, somewhere – while the calf high black boots hugged her bare legs. The joined rectangles pointing to McCabe's right in a vaguely arrowhead shape with its elongated black star gleamed in the bright light, as did the paired braids of gold at each wrist. "A good fit," she concluded.

"Takes some getting used to," McCabe offered. Hoshi scanned her again, particularly the extremely _brief_ hemline.

"I imagine so." She met the woman's eyes. McCabe kept hers facing front in strict military discipline. "I suppose you'd prefer ermine robes."

"I look forward to it, your Highness," she answered with a look of naked anticipation.

Hoshi considered her. "You're not afraid of me. You have ambition, and you're not afraid to show it."

"You would not respect me if I were either, your Majesty."

An instant later Hoshi's dagger dimpled the soft flesh under McCabe's chin. "Are you still not afraid?"

McCabe shifted only her eyes, to see as much of the dagger under her chin as she could. The hand that held it was steady, and clearly ready to thrust. "No, your Majesty."

She pressed a micrometer further. "Why not?"

"I've been aboard almost a full day; you could have killed me at any instant I displeased you, and still can. But I believe you know that if you do, you will be extinguishing your best possible candidate for successor, or perhaps Regent first."

Ten seconds Hoshi studied the woman, black eyes penetrating deeply into brown, then she lowered the blade and returned it to the hidden scabbard through the almost undetectable slit in her dress. "I was right about you. You do have eggs."

"Yes, your Majesty."

"Is there any limit to your ambition?"

"For the moment," McCabe allowed. "I plan to be the Captain of your Flagship."

x

Hoshi considered briefly, nodded in thought, and her left fist flashed up and slammed into McCabe's jaw. Stunned by the unexpected punch, the taller woman was knocked backward over the table. A moment later she slid off it and crumpled to the floor.

McCabe looked up at her Empress, holding her jaw, shocked for a second, then she came up quickly and her own left fist flashed to Hoshi's face.

Hoshi shifted to her right, toward the table and Travis' rifle was pressed the side of McCabe's head.

"_Wait_." Hoshi ordered, freezing both of them.

For a long moment Patricia McCabe stood motionless, the rifle pressed to her head, while Hoshi considered her. "To attack the Empress is punishable by death."

"If by all this, you intended to _execute_ me, then just tell him to fire and get it over with."

Hoshi took a step back, not wanting to be too close to the deadly discharge. "Travis?"

"Your Majesty?"

"Fire."

x

Patricia McCabe did not even blink as Travis pulled the trigger. There was an almost inaudible click, normally drowned out by the burst of power from the emitter; then the rifle remained silent in his hand. McCabe cautiously stood upright. "The safety was on," Hoshi told her. "But you didn't know that, did you?"

"No."

"Did you think I wouldn't kill you?"

"No, your Highness, I believed you would."

"Then why did you take a swing at me?"

"You test people. You've been testing me since I beamed aboard. You've expressed an interest in just how hard boiled my eggs are. I'm not going to lie on the floor like a dog."

Hoshi considered the tall woman before her. Though she could have, McCabe did not even favor a doubtlessly sore jaw. Hoshi signaled to Travis to lower his rifle and withdraw. "Did you know I'd evade you?"

"There was no need for you to. I would have missed by about a millimeter."

Hoshi glanced at Travis, who had had a different angle. The man nodded.

"All right."

"So, have I passed, your Excellency?"

Hoshi gave her a small nod. "You're still breathing."

She turned to the triple monitor set onto the middle of the desk, which was large enough to seat ten. The information about the Federation was still displayed. "We will meet with the Andorian emissary in about half an hour, but before we do we have much to discuss," Hoshi told her X.O., dismissing the issue. "As you've discovered, there's a lot I have not revealed to anyone off of this ship. In the coming weeks you'll learn much more."

She took a seat, inviting with a wave of her hand McCabe to sit next to her. McCabe righted the chair she had been sitting in, and the women sat down.

"But before we go into this," Hoshi indicated the screen, "I want you to understand that, in the Negotiations to come, if I want you to have an opinion I will give it to you."

McCabe nodded. "Yes, your Highness."

x

Before Hoshi could begin, the words on the screen vanished, replaced by the image of Ann Anderson. "Bridge to Empress Sato."

"Go ahead," Hoshi directed as though she hadn't been interrupted. Anderson hesitated however, her eyes flicking to McCabe seated beside the Empress.

"May I speak freely, your Majesty?"

Hoshi considered. "No." She turned to McCabe. "Excuse us, please."

"Of course, your Majesty," McCabe said with no concern whatsoever slipping into her voice. If she had any thoughts about not being included, she hid them perfectly.

Hoshi also signaled for Travis to depart. If there was any reason for him to know what Anderson had to say, she would inform him later. Until then, she wanted his eyes out in the corridor where they could observe McCabe and Estes.

There was only one reason her spy would call her, and she did not want McCabe, or anyone else, knowing Anderson's mission. The key to Anderson's usefulness was that no one was to know she was the Empress' spy. Even her duties on Earth would be designed to seem innocuous.

When they were alone, Hoshi turned to the screen. "Go ahead."

"Last night internal sensors recorded this event," was all Anderson said, and then she pushed a button on her panel.

x

On the screen appeared the image of Chief Engineer Mary Sherman making her way down a corridor in a controlled stagger. Hoshi wondered if the redheaded woman still felt the effects of the Agony Booth. The index on the lower right corner of the screen indicated it had been some time since she had been 'punished'. She thought she should inquire of Phlox about this aspect of the Booth's operation; it should prove an interesting and useful fact.

As Hoshi watched, Sherman paused to rest against a bulkhead, then pushed away but collapsed before she could take another step. She was rescued by a young Cadet. Hoshi again checked the chronometer; the young man must have been on his way from Hoshi's speech in the Shuttle Bay. She watched as he helped Sherman into her quarters, helped her out of her scarlet clothes, helped her forget her pain.

As a seductive technique Hoshi, far more skilled in the art, considered it almost laughable, except that it would work quite effectively on a young idealistic Cadet in his late teens, one already proven to be as suggestible and malleable as his peers.

Hoshi was not particularly interested in the lovemaking that ensued; she was far more interested in any conversation that would follow, except that there was none at all, certainly not of a seditious nature. But the Empress didn't need words; she saw the woman's eyes. She watched them very closely, in fact.

These were not the eyes of a woman who had been brutally raped just the night before, who had then dealt with her rapist and been punished for it. All that was there, it was true, but there was more. Her behavior was not typical. Granted, the woman was not the product of previous centuries, but she was hardened even if she didn't have the strength that came with the toughening. It was possible that she had 'innocently' taken to her bed someone who could help her forget the pain, and the horror of her rape, but Hoshi didn't believe this for a moment.

The recording halted after they fell asleep, and resumed when the call alert awoke them at 0700. Hoshi listened very carefully to the conversation that followed, again finding nothing seditious in it. Sherman's were the words of a woman very grateful for a man's attention, and complimentary of his ability and talents. It was everything a young man would be gratified to hear from a beautiful woman, and Hoshi watched this young man fall for her lure 'hook, line and sinker'.

The recording ended after they had dressed and departed for their respective duties.

x

"Thank you, Lieutenant. Keep both of them under surveillance, and alert me should they 'encounter' one another again, particularly if it is while outside one of their assigned duties."

"Yes, your Highness." The screen resumed the image of the Historical Database's readout on the history of the Federation, but Hoshi wasn't seeing it. She sat for several moments in contemplation, and then touched a button on the panel before her.

"Come in." Even as McCabe and Mayweather returned, again leaving Estes on duty outside, Hoshi had already considered her First Officer.

She knew that once the woman saw the images she intended to show her, McCabe was certainly intelligent enough to realize their source and Anderson's mission. But right now, she wanted McCabe's input more than she wanted secrecy.

If she was correct about being able to trust McCabe, then the knowledge did not matter. If she was wrong, and the woman could not be trusted – well, the knowledge still would not matter.

"I want you to see this." She turned back to the monitor as McCabe resumed her seat beside her. "Computer; replay sensor log just displayed."

On the screen were rerun the images Hoshi had just watched. She paid stricter attention this time to Sherman's face, particularly her eyes, her body language. When the erotic scene had played out in full, and the couple separated for their respective duties, Hoshi returned her attention to McCabe. "What do you think?"

"I could have given him a better evening." Hoshi tried very hard to restrain a laugh, and not let her face show any mirth either. Then McCabe's manner became as serious. "She's going to betray you."

"That's what I think. She didn't make any overtures to this one yet."

"The key, of course, is 'yet'. He may not be in a position to help her in any move she intends to make, but he'll be the first of many."

"Definitely." Hoshi had taken the same path herself aboard 'Enterprise', using her lovely body and considerable talents to gather an array of men who were 'grateful' and would be loyal to her when the time was right. She flicked a gaze to Mayweather, and in his eyes she could see that the situation he had watched was quite familiar indeed.

"She hasn't made a move yet," McCabe continued, "but in time she will. What do you intend to do about it?"

Hoshi smiled slightly. "What would you do?" She wanted to know this even more.

"Same as you. Watch her, and those she comes into contact with. Thus far, she's done nothing but ease her hurts with a good time, nothing she could go back into the Booth for." McCabe watched Hoshi's eyes tighten at the word. She was never above doing tests either. "In fact, I would not even let her suspect she's being observed. In time, her plans will become apparent."

"Even if it's after I am gone, and she becomes your problem?"

McCabe smiled thinly. "She's already my problem, your Majesty." She considered. "Who is the man?"

Hoshi reached for the controls. "Computer."

"Working."

"Identify male shown on security record recently displayed on this monitor." It took only a second.

"Starfleet Cadet Sean J. Christopher IV. Specialist in nanotechnology."

Hoshi thought about it for a moment. "Why does that name sound familiar?" She mused. There was no reason why she should know the name of anyone from last night's gathering.

"Rear Admiral Sean Jeffery Christopher?" McCabe guessed. The man had been a pioneer in space flight, charting the moons of Saturn.

"Of course. I hope this one has his ancestor's loyalty."

x

McCabe thought about it. "I wouldn't take him into custody."

Hoshi shook her head. "That's something Jonathan Archer would have done. The man was never subtle. No. We'll keep watching them both. Hopefully he'll have enough sense to devote himself to science rather than sex – or sedition."

"I'd hate to lose _her_ if she can be salvaged."

Hoshi shook her head. "I can't keep killing my enemies, or my potential ones. Good C.E.'s are hard to find as it is. It is too important a position to trust to someone outside. I trusted Margan's recommendation of you, after some tests, but I cannot keep doing this with every officer who comes aboard. And if I can't even outfit a ship, how am I going to run a Galaxy?"

"Bring her inside." At Hoshi's questioning look, she continued. "There's an ancient saying; 'keep your cronies close but your adversaries closer'. A C.E. is an integral officer on any ship. She should be as much a part of the inner circle as Commander Tucker had been. Let her inside, watch her but let her think you trust her. Let her think she's safe to make her plans – _if_ she even continues to make them. She won't be the first one to decide that cooperation is more _profitable_ than revenge."

"It would be far preferable to the Booth." Her greatest desire about that apparatus was for it never to have existed, and she felt soiled for having given in to the temptation to order its recreation. This might be the better solution she had sought. She was impressed by how much this woman's thoughts seemed to mirror her own. "Make it so."

x

"Bridge to Empress Sato," the intercom called. Hoshi pushed the appropriate button, and on the screen Grace Winter's face replaced the to-this-point unaddressed text. "The Andorian emissary's ship, escorted by the Imperial Cruiser 'Thunderbolt', has dropped out of warp."

A cruiser is smaller than a battleship such as 'Enterprise', and was generally a support ship. Its winged design gave it the appearance of a bird in flight, and its more aerodynamic design actually allowed it to skim low into the atmospheres of planets to deliver attacks.

"Weapons status?"

"Both ships have weapons powered down."

"Lock main phasers on the Andorian, and put the secondaries on the 'Thunderbolt', but take no further action." She glanced toward McCabe, addressing her. "It shouldn't be necessary."

"No, your Highness," McCabe agreed. "Once they detect the weapons lock, they should be very cooperative. 'Thunderbolt' will know we trust them, but within limits."

"Exactly." Hoshi turned back to the monitor. "Have a squad of M.A.C.O.s escort the emissary to the Briefing Room. What is his name?"

"General Thy'lek Shran, your Majesty."

"And what is the status of my special package?"

"Your suspicions were correct. Your package was delivered and awaits opening."

"Extend my compliments to General Shran; inform him we will meet him immediately. Make _certain_ he is unarmed. Download available data about him to this terminal." She turned off the circuit, and the Historical Archive was again displayed. A moment later it was replaced by a representation of the Andorian, accompanied by his Service Record. Hoshi looked at it for a moment, then shook her head and glanced at McCabe. "Not enough hours in the day," she said, but then thought privately: 'Especially when I sleep until nearly noon.'

"No, your Highness."


	16. Shran

Chapter Sixteen

Shran

The door signal sounded softly ten minutes later. "Come," Hoshi commanded.

By the time the door slid open Commander McCabe was standing at Hoshi's right, Travis Mayweather at her left. The Empress was seated between them, regal in her blue gown, appearing more as though upon a throne than a functional chair. An Honor Guard of four M.A.C.O.s escorted, boxed within their ranks, an Andorian General resplendent in his formal military uniform. She noted it was a uniform of the Andorian Imperial Guard rather than that of the Empire, though his rank of General was Imperial. Further, while he came to Attention before her, his salute was Andorian, a clenched left fist next to the left temple rather than the Terran right handed salute.

Shran was blue, not the warm blue of Earth's oceans but the frigid blue of a glacier. The blue that suffused him was modulated in various parts of his body, but the only distinct break from this alien blueness was in the stark whiteness of his short hair. It sat upon his head like a patch of frozen snow. From the middle of his head, in line with his ears, two sensory antennae scanned the room. Each moved seemingly independently. Both were not only receptors but were excellent telegraphers of an Andorian's thoughts and moods.

He did not bow the knee as her Ministers had done, and though he greeted her with strict military formality, it was Andorian military rather than Terran.

Hoshi did not speak, did not change expression as she regarded him coolly. She would wait for him to speak, to be the first to break the silence as she considered him. He was every inch the proud General, from the tips of his prehensile blue antennae to his mirror polished black boots. His eyes, locked on hers, were not harsh but still bore the icy cold of his frigid planet.

They continued staring at each other, neither side willing to break down first. One minute, two; she would not have expected it to go to three minutes, but it did. Finally, not to break anything but the deadlocked silence and start accomplishing things, she spoke first. "I see before me, General, not an Officer of the Terran Empire but of your own Imperial Guard."

"I have renounced my rank within _your_ Empire," he told her in glacial tones, "and have become Supreme Commander of Andorian Forces for, as you so accurately put it, our own Imperial Guard."

x

She did not point out that, though an 'Emperor' did again sit upon the throne of Andoria, he did so illegitimately, regardless of his blood line. The present hereditary emperor had been allowed to hold the honorary title and position of 'Imperial Governor', but that had been the first thing to go when the rebellion had started.

She could have pointed all this out to Shran, but that was the best way to get his back up; something she didn't want to do so early in the negotiations. With the 'Defiant', she could lay waste to the Andorian military and their home world, and could command their allegiance over the shattered debris of their civilization, but this was also something she was not going to point out.

She could have this man groveling on his knees before her as past Emperors had been able to do, but neither was that a part of her plan.

There was plenty of time for him to grovel – later.

x

"Come." She indicated the chair beside her. "Sit with me. We will talk."

He stalked up to her, but remained standing, looking down upon her from his position near her knees. Even his antennae above his thatch of white hair adopted a haughty stance. "Your 'Empire' is _losing_ this war, so now you wish to talk."

She looked up at him and smiled, half sweetly and half in full confidence of victory. "Sit. Let us enjoy an hour of civil conversation."

"Before your surrender?"

Her smile widened. "Before our Alliance."

x

That was just enough to force surprise from him, and he sat down as she'd invited. They turned their chairs about toward the table. Commander McCabe took a seat on the other side of her Empress. Hoshi spoke first. "I trust that your spy network both on Earth and your 'listening post' on Pluto have reported fully everything they have been able to learn about this ship."

She carefully restrained a smile at the almost microscopic flicker in the man's eyes. His antennae scanned her even more intently than his eyes. "Your Intelligence network is as efficient as I had been concerned it would be."

She favored him with a tiny smile. "We've known of your spies on Earth, both Andorian and hired agents, for some time; as well as of your base on Pluto, but we allowed you to watch." Hoshi, who had decidedly _not_ known anything of the kind, was very gratified to have her inchoate suspicions confirmed.

She had suspected the network was in place from the time that the Andorians had been the first to respond to her overture for negotiation. That was why she had dispatched a special covert operation to Pluto. It had stood to reason that if the Andorians were to have a complex spy network set up, a hidden base on a world as frigid as that orbiting Andoria would be perfect for them.

It was the closest stable body outside the orbits of the four gas giants, generally 'ignored' as useless to Terrans, but perfect for their enemies. It was another of the many reasons why the late Robert MacNamara and his cohorts had been losing this war.

"You've learned much about the power of this new ship," she continued.

"We have; both from the battle with our combined forces, which destroyed eleven of your battleships and which you dispatched within seconds, as well as from your dealings on Earth. We were also impressed by the way you dealt with sedition on your own world; destroying one of your cities to prove yourself. I compliment you. I had no idea you had such steel."

Hoshi's stomach clenched, but she fought to keep any sign of it from her face.

"Then you are aware," she continued, "that secure data about this ship has already been disseminated to our shipyards and other facilities. Our battleships are being retrofitted, starting with the damaged 'Vindicator' even as new designs are being developed for a new class of Starships, the 'Defiant' class."

Even his antennae assumed a mocking stance. "Half built starships will not fly and half repaired battleships will not fight. Before the first of your new ships launches, this war will be over. And you, 'Empress', are a liar."

x

Hoshi allowed a half smile to touch her lips. "Am I?" Any other Emperor would have had this man exterminated on the spot.

Shran's expressive antennae rose with his confidence like twin cobras ready to strike. "If you knew about our listening post on the edge of your system, you would have destroyed it rather than allow us to assemble the intelligence with which to defeat you."

"You're right. The previous Emperor was an idiot; that's one of the reasons he's dead." She reached out to the three sided monitor on the table before her, pushing the activation button. "Bridge; Tactical."

The image that appeared on the screen was unexpected, and Hoshi had to carefully school her expression. McCabe was grateful Shran's eyes were not on her, for she was not at all pleased as a thin, angular face appeared. "Tactical, Reed."

"Omega." If Malcolm Reed did not know the code 'Omega' he could look it up – quickly. She had briefed Anderson; and if he fouled up her plan, he would not live to explain himself. "Tie in long range sensors; put up an image of Pluto on this monitor."

"At once, your Highness," Reed complied, sounding entirely too gratified. He activated a control on his board, and a moment later another, and then his visage was replaced by an image of the small frozen world far out in the edge of the solar system.

The body, not much bigger than Luna, was utterly frozen by the icy depths of space. It was so far away that Sol appeared a pinprick in its sky, and no heat from our sun reached it. It was only by computer enhancement that the details of its topography could be discerned.

"Subspace sensors," Hoshi remarked. "Pluto is so far away that, were we to look at it telescopically, we would be seeing an image from minutes ago. But this, being subspace, is virtually real time." She looked at Shran. "I'm sure you can pick out your listening post without any problem."

"I know where it is," he said noncommittally.

"I've never seen this view. Indulge me. Just exactly where is it?"

Shran considered. While normally he would not give up the information, she already knew enough, if not all, about it. A secret even partially breached is no secret at all. The base will have to be evacuated immediately; it won't be useful to them any longer. He extended his hand, his finger pointing to a spot in the lower right quarter of the planet. "It's right–"

The spot he indicated flared so brightly it overwhelmed the screen and he was forced to draw back, protecting his eyes from the glare. His antennae turned away as well, overwhelmed.

When his eyes started to clear, and he blinked away the last of the painful flash, rubbing his watering orbs, he could see the screen again. The crater at the spot he had pointed to was so vast it was visible on the screen, but of the station he knew so intimately there was _nothing_. He stared at the woman beside him, appalled. His antennae dropped. "There were two hundred Andorians based there."

Hoshi, having known the time delay of the signal Reed had sent across the solar system, had not been looking at the screen, but had closed her eyes before the crucial second, saving her vision. Thus she was able to address the dismayed General with clear eyes. "That single anti-matter warhead was delivered a few hours ago by a cloaked Suliban ship. It was only one of this vessel's armaments; calibrated for a lesser yield than the one that was used on Seattle.

"I trust that they reported completely upon the effect _that_ missile had?" Shran nodded, soul-sick. "The one used on Seattle was at one-tenth capacity. You understand now what this ship can do to Andoria."

x

Thy'lek Shran was shaken. He had undertaken this mission with the blessing of his government to press for terms of the Terran surrender before the combined forces of the Rebellion could wear down the last of the Empire's strength and crush them with force of might, of numbers and of arms.

That they could defeat the Empire he had had no doubt. The Terrans were losing, and while their might and resources were vast, they were not infinite. It would take time, and be a long and bloody conflict, but the rebels were committed.

But now he was forced to see a different truth. The rebellion could defeat Robert MacNamara, who was by no means a true General, but the tide of war had changed. They might yet beat the Empire under Hoshi Sato, but the cost has just rocketed upward immensely. They might win, after a prolonged and bloody conflict, but would Andoria be there when the smoke cleared?

Clearly the power of this 'Defiant' was not limited to its own self. It could, from billions of miles away, inflict major damage upon the forces of the Rebellion.

A collection of cloaked ships could possibly plant a score of these mind-boggling weapons all over Andoria, and there might not be any way to stop it.

It was a poor General who won a war and lost his planet.

"So, I came here to discuss terms for your surrender, and now must do so for mine," he said, keeping his voice level. He would not whine over the changing fortunes of war. Even his antennae drew back, rearing away cautiously. "What do you want?"

"My dear General," Hoshi replied with a soft smile, "the issue is not what I want, but what _you_ want."

x

"What _I_ want?" He could not remember the last time he had been so surprised by three simple words.

"Yes." She leaned forward half an inch, adopting a sincere manner. "With the 'Defiant' behind me, I can decimate the galaxy. But I have no desire to destroy. When my hand is forced, I will be ruthless, but I am not MacNamara. He used the iron fist, but when you grip a handful of sand in an iron gauntlet, you cannot hold on to anything. I prefer a different way."

"What different way?" Shran asked distrustfully.

"Tell me, why did Andoria rebel?"

"You know our reasons," he told her tightly, barely restraining his frustration. Victory had been so close.

"I'd rather hear them from your lips."

Shran had looked forward to saying this to a Terran in authority for a very long time, and held nothing of his fiery emotion back. "You take our resources, our people, our way of life. Your forces come into our cities and take what you want for your precious Empire. You conscript our citizens for your military, our food for your bellies, our riches for your coffers, our resources for your industry. You enter our schools and teach your English to our young, who by rights of birth and heritage should learn of Andoria. You take our identity, our very essence. Your laws countermand ours, your ideology overwhelms ours. We have no say in our own governing; you appoint our leaders and your forces control their every move."

"And what do you want?"

"What do we want?" Shran echoed, incredulous that she could be so dense as to ask such a question. "We want to have our resources for our own, not to ship a tithe of everything we raise to you. We want to come and go within our own cities without your troops harassing our citizens. We want our young in our own schools. We want to not have to fight in your wars, to not be taken by force to man your ships and fight and die in your battles. We want to be Andorians, not slaves. This is what we want!"

Hoshi considered the man for several moments; then nodded. "Done."

x

Shran had only _thought_ that he had been stunned earlier. "Did you just say 'done'?" he managed to breathe. He had expected a huge argument, or to be taken by force to their torture chambers, not….

"I did," Hoshi told him, enjoying the sight of the flummoxed General. "You are here empowered by your government to conclude a Treaty with the Empire, are you not?" She asked this to give him a chance to regain his aplomb.

"I am," he said, incredulous.

"Then let this be our Agreement: I give you my Personal Guarantee that everything you have asked for will be done, and all within thirty Terran days by my Imperial Order. Your natural resources for your planet; the tithe drastically modified if not abolished – we can consider minutia later. Free passage of your citizenry within your own territorial borders will be restored. Your native laws will be reinstated with a _possible_ integration with our own, details to be discussed. Your young will be sent to your own schools to learn your ways _as well as ours_; and the forcible conscription of your citizens into our armed forces will be terminated immediately."

x

This was happening too fast. Shran looked hard into her face, his eyes and antennae almost boring into her. "_Why_?" he breathed; appalled but for a vastly different reason. This capitulation, this agreement, made absolutely no sense. "You could destroy us. You could command a capitulation from us, or we could fight to the last surviving…."

"That is exactly what I do _not _want. I don't want to destroy, or see your race destroyed. I'm willing to give you my Personal Guarantee that everything you asked for will come to pass, not in the next decade, not next year, but now."

"Why?"

"Because I want something from you."

"Ah. Here it comes," he said; his old cynicism back. Now he thought he understood. "What do _you_ want?"

"I want you to stop your Rebellion. I want peace between us; so that we may all use the resources we have to work in harmony, not to blow each other out of space. Neither the Empire nor the Rebels will back down before everything there is has been destroyed. I am trying to find a new way.

"So my proposition is simple. You have my Personal Guarantee that what you want will come to pass, if you stop your rebellion and pledge your support to _me_."

"I think I understand," Shran said, certain that he was interpreting the situation correctly. It was, in fact, exactly what he would do in the same circumstances. "This is your 'Personal Guarantee', and _as long as you live_ we will have what we want."

"You pledge your allegiance, not to the Terran Empire, but to _me_. As long as I live and sit upon the throne of the Empire, you will _have_ what you went to war and fought so hard for."

"Then it is in Andoria's best interest to see that you have a long and fruitful reign."

"Precisely."

x

General Thy'lek Shran considered long and hard, but could find nothing of deception in her. The beauty of the proposal was that it was so simple, not containing endless clauses and codicils to creep up later and kill someone. It remained only for him to decide: a long drawn out war wherein alliances were made with the other Rebel forces to stand together in solidarity against a malevolent Empire, or negotiate a peace for Andoria alone.

"You're asking us to turn our backs on our Allies, on people who have staked their own lives in defeating you. We bargained to stand together against you, no matter what the cost. What shall we say now to the Vulcans, to the Tellarites, the Orions, the Klingons, the Mazarites; to all the others? How do you buy our proposed betrayal with your promise?"

"You are the first to reply to my offer of negotiation, but not the last," she told him. "The agreement I make with you I shall make with the others. At first it will be slow, but as more and more races agree; the backbone of your rebellion will dissolve and the war will be over. And the last holdout will receive the same terms I give to you: what they want in exchange for their _personal_ support."

"As long as you live and reign, we will have what we want. And you will keep your word?"

"Should I break my word – or be assassinated and lose the throne – then you are free to resume your war."

He considered her carefully; very carefully. Then, after a long moment, he stood up and turned to her, and with his right hand this time he executed a slow and precise Imperial salute. "The Andorian people withdraw from the Rebellion against the Terran Empire, and pledge their support to Empress Hoshi Sato. Long live the Empress."

Her Imperial Majesty rose and returned his salute. "Long live the Alliance. Long live the Empire."

"Long Live the Empire." Commander McCabe and the five M.A.C.O.s chorused.


	17. Architect of the Empire

Chapter Seventeen

Architect of the Empire

At 1150 hours the next day, Empress Hoshi Sato stepped upon her bridge, accompanied by Patricia McCabe, Travis Mayweather and Paul Estes. Though the latter two held all on the bridge covered by their weapons, there seemed hardly a reason to do so. At Major Reed's announcement 'Empress on the bridge' all stood and saluted her. She returned the salute with infinite gratification; allowing her officers to again seat themselves, then turned to Grace Winters standing to her right.

"Your Majesty," the blonde woman reported, "the Andorian government has formally ratified the treaty, as have the Vulcans." The Vulcan High Command had conducted their negotiations yesterday via subspace, something wholly satisfying to the Empress. There had been no mention of the late T'Pol. In yesterday's conversation, it was as though the woman had never existed on the 'Enterprise' crew.

"What word from the Palace?"

Winters grinned evilly. "Your Ministers are in an uproar. A third demand to know why they were not consulted before your action, as if they had not met with you and heard all the details. They still wanted to be able to act, and actually thought they could influence your move. A third support your unilateral move without question as a brilliant strategy, and a third are fearful of execution."

Hoshi shook her head with an ironic smile. "Tell them all I haven't made up my mind which third I will liquidate. What else?"

"The Orion government was pretty shaken by the Andorian and Vulcan withdrawals. They made noises about solidarity and fighting to the last man–"

"An easy threat for a Matriarchy to make."

Winters nodded in agreement. "But we've just received a signal a few minutes ago that they want to negotiate."

"I'll do that one by subspace too. The last time I spent any time with Orion women, I had a headache for two days. What else?"

"That is all of significance, your Majesty."

"There is no misunderstanding among any of my Ministers as to the terms of these treaties?"

"None. We've been broadcasting information throughout the Empire. The treaties are Personal ones between the rebels and you. So long as you live and reign, the war is over."

"Their response?"

She grinned again. "I thought I'd have to replace one of the transtators, your Highness."

"Fine. Signal the Palace and inform them that I will beam down with my staff at 1500. Tell them to prepare for my Coronation tomorrow morning, 0900."

"As you command, your Highness." She sat down at her station and opened the appropriate channels, conducting her work quietly.

Hoshi looked across the circle of the bridge to the Tactical Station, where Major Reed sat. "Good to have you back, Malcolm."

"Good to be back, your Majesty," he replied, not looking at the woman at her side.

"Where is Anderson? I trust you didn't…." She left it hanging.

"I reassigned her. Beta shift," he told her smugly. There was no way an Ensign, bumped up to Lieutenant while he was disabled, was going to be among the primary crew.

"Hardly necessary. She'll be coming with me to the Palace."

Hoshi immensely enjoyed the look frozen rigidly upon the man's face. She looked around the bridge at her crew, old and new faces. It had been a whirlwind week, a very long morning, but she was tired and looking forward to getting some rest before beaming down this afternoon to assume her new role. Just one last duty to perform.

x

"Computer," she called aloud. There was a brief answering beep. "This is Empress Hoshi Sato. Verify voice print."

"Voice print verified," the feminine voice replied.

"Transfer all command codes to McCabe, Patricia Marie." There was a series of soft beeps.

"Command codes transferred. U.S.S. 'Defiant' now under the Command of Patricia Marie McCabe."

The woman, clad in Federation gold, turned to her and saluted. "I relieve you, your Majesty."

Hoshi returned the salute. "I stand relieved. Good luck and good fortune. Long live the Empire."

"Long live the _Empress_."

x

Patricia McCabe stepped down into the command well, and seated herself for the first time in the center chair. Malcolm, watching closely, saw something he had missed the first time he'd forced himself to look at her; the double golden bands on the wrist of each sleeve of her gold uniform now sandwiched a broken band. McCabe touched a control on the right arm rest of the chair, and her voice echoed throughout the ship.

"This is the _Captain_ speaking. All hands are to prepare for Coronation ceremonies, 0900 tomorrow morning in the Imperial Palace. New dress uniforms." She turned off the circuit and looked to her right. "Lieutenant Parker, front and center."

x

The woman attending the Science Station stood, uncertain what to expect. She had been part of the 'execution squad' that had dispatched the former Chief Engineer, but the 'punishment' that had befallen Lt. Cdr. Mary Sherman had not settled upon her. She expected that it would now.

Trying her best to keep any sign of apprehension from her face, she stepped down into the Command well, stood before her Captain and saluted crisply. She did her best to avoid visibly holding her breath. She couldn't keep her eyes from flicking to the phaser at McCabe's waist, nor the one at Mayweather's.

"Computer," Captain McCabe continued, "record appointment of Christina Parker as both Science Officer _and_ Executive Officer, with the rank of Commander, effective immediately."

Tina Parker was so surprised it took her a moment to find her voice. "Thank you, Captain." She barely managed to keep it short of an exclamation.

"Resume your post, Commander."

"Aye, Captain." She saluted crisply and found she could almost float back to her Science Station.

For an instant her eyes met those of her Empress, but she could read nothing in them. She didn't know that Sato, when she had conferred with McCabe following the late night appointment of the new Captain, would not have made this appointment.

x

Hoshi recognized, however, that her reason was an emotional reaction to Charles Tucker's murder; that she would not have advanced any of the culprits to anything other than an airlock.

She had not questioned McCabe's appointment of the woman, nor would she oppose any future postings. It was McCabe's decision, arrived at logically after reviewing the records of several possible candidates, based upon service and ability, as well as loyalty to the Empire.

She knew she had to remember this lesson as well. She could not allow the wisdom of her decisions to be distorted by emotion or ties, not matter how strong.

x

Empress Hoshi Sato turned and left her bridge for the final time. The 'Defiant' would be in good hands. With her Personal Guard she entered the turbolift and began her descent to her former quarters. She was no longer in command of a Starship.

She was in command of the Galaxy.

Epilogue

2262

Captain James Tiberius Kirk, new Commander of the Starship I.S.S. 'Enterprise', the second ship to bear that proud name, accompanied by his new First Officer, the Vulcan Spock, is on Earth following his accession to command after his successful assassination of his former commander Captain Christopher Pike.

He is there to meet with the Emperor, to pledge his Personal Loyalty to the ruler of the Empire, as Starship Commanders have had to do for over 100 years.

Following this conference, he and Spock depart through the Hall of Imperials, large statues lining both sides of the hall, depicting the Emperors who had led the Terran Empire through its long and proud history. As they are in reverse order, the most recent are closest to the throne room, and Kirk pauses before one particular statue, next to the door, on his right. It bears the image of the Leader of the Empire next in line to the previous Ruler, whose image appeared on the left side of the hall.

Where most of the line of Imperials had been men, there had been nine women over the centuries; the statue of the most recent of whom they pause before.

"I've always had a particular admiration for this one," Kirk said. "She Ascended at only 25 and died 15 years before I was born. I'd loved to have met her. I studied her Reign in school."

"As did we all," the taciturn Vulcan, in his blue uniform shirt resplendent with medals, pointed out unnecessarily, reminding him that _everyone_ had studied the reign of this particular ruler.

Kirk stood looking up at the image, clenched hands on hips decorated with his new metallic gold Command sash. He'd gladly put aside the sash of First Officer, leaving it for the Vulcan beside him.

"In the early days of her Reign, the Empire had been in chaos from within and under attack from without. She brought Order to Chaos, and set us on our way to Glory. Under her rule, the Empire expanded to cover over a fifth of the galaxy. She lived to a fine old age; 87 years, _very_ rare for Emperors. Most Emperors are feared and, for a good number of them, people can't wait for them to earn their final reward. But she was different. She was actually loved, hard as that might seem to be believed. When she died she was mourned as no other had ever been."

They looked up at the statue. It depicted a proud, noble woman in her prime. All Emperors, regardless of how long they served - and some had served for long periods - were depicted in their prime. The white marble statue showed an Asian woman robed in the finery of her Office.

In her left hand she held a 'Defiant' Class starship such as are still in use to this day, the first of a fleet of over 2,000 such vessels which had unified and expanded the Empire throughout known space. In her right hand was depicted a representation of the Milky Way Galaxy. The front of the marble base, carved after her death, was inscribed in raised letters:

Her Imperial Majesty

**Hoshi Sato-Mayweather**

"**Architect of the Empire**"

Born July 9, 2129

Ascended January 19, 2155

Died April 23, 2217

In the 62nd Year of her Reign.


End file.
